


The Monsters Among Us

by FaerieHuntress



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Insert, Don't Judge, Explicit Language, F/M, I'm doing my best, Multi, My First Work in This Fandom, Original Character(s), POV First Person, Prison (Walking Dead), Slow Burn, Woodbury (Walking Dead), also an assassin main character, basically a retelling of the show from season 3 with additional characters thrown in, with some weird magical bullshit going on in the background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2020-11-27 13:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 42
Words: 209,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieHuntress/pseuds/FaerieHuntress
Summary: Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn't make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But because of what shewasnow.Having found herself serving as the right-hand to the Governor for too long, Synnove le Jacques does her best to make things right with the people of the Prison. Stuck beside her partner in crime, her irritatingly obnoxious and hideously problematic best friend, Merle, she does her best to fight back against the monster she has let the Governor become.





	1. The Consequence of Morality

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
G'day ladies and gents and those who would prefer to remain unspecified, how are you this fine [insert time of day]? Me? I'm great. Fantastic. Slightly sleep deprived and manic, but other than that, I ain't bad. This fic has been close to my heart for a while, always playing around in my head whilst I watch the show, so I thought it was about time I subjected others to it.  
The main character is an original of mine, from the series of books I currently have in the works. I've never actually written anything Fan-Fiction-wise, so bare with me on this crazed journey as I insert her into the world of the Walking Dead and rightfully fuck up all of their lives with her bullshit.
> 
> Thank you for not murdering me on sight.  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress

It was easy to forget how fragile humans could be. How easily their bodies break, their minds more so. I should have seen it sooner. The decay. The absolute descent from decent man to homicidal lunatic. Really, it should have been clear as day to me. I’d been with the man since the beginning. Followed his lead. Obeyed his orders because I believed he stood for the good of all those still left alive in this goddamn hellscape.

We had been strangers once. At the beginning.

He, his daughter, and his wife had been waiting in the seen-better-days room outside the hanger of the private airport out west. It had been a present from his wife. A single day of flight lessons from a local pilot.

Me, on the other hand? Well, I’d been waiting for my getaway plane. My day job wasn’t exactly within the realm of legality and, often, I’d find myself requiring a rather speedy exit from the immediate vicinity. That time was no different. I did my job and got out of there like any self-respecting worker would do.

I’m still unsure whether it was his luck or mine that allowed us to be within the same place at the same time that day. The answer would likely change depending on which one of us you asked. I say it was my luck. He would say it was his. Either way, we both lucked out that day.

Well, as much as one could “luck out” at the beginning of the fucking apocalypse.

I had gotten him and his daughter to safety, along with the handful of other occupants of the hanger that day. His wife didn’t make it. She was the first to go. I’d had to drag him away from her in order to make sure the kid didn’t become a damn orphan within the space of two minutes.

After we escape the airfield, we made our way steadily towards the nearby town. We had passed by the prison. I remembered that quite clearly. The screams coming from behind those brick walls were horrendous. Lucky for the rest of them, I was the only one that could hear them.

The town was owned by the dead when we arrived. We should have known better, but it was only the beginning. There were many lessons we had yet to learn.

Myself and two of the others cleared a way to the towering city hall building at the centre of town, barricading the doors for good measure. We held up in there for almost three days before Phil came up with that brilliant plan of his.

Build walls, he said, like it was going to be easy. Build them high and strong to keep the dead at bay.

And we did.

It was hard work. Keeping the dead back long enough to place another panel, building more and more each day until the bodies piling up were almost as high as the fence itself. That was my job, of course. Killing them. I was good at it and the rest of them knew it. In fact, I was too good at it and I knew it unnerved some of them. Especially Marcus.

Often, I’d find him eyeing me up from across the room, as if he expected I would leap up and murder him on the spot for absolutely no reason. I’d been quite transparent about my profession since the start, believing it would solidify a sense of trust, but Phillip and Milton were the only ones that didn’t look at me like I was a criminal. Phil, I think, saw the benefit of having someone like me on his side. Milton just accepted it because I was the only one that would listen to him go on about his scientific theories.

It was only after the walls were finished around our newly thriving little community that Marcus made his move.

I wish I could say I hadn’t expected it. But they’d made their intensions glaringly obvious from the get-go. He, Zach, and Luke did their best to catch me off guard during my nightly rounds. Their best wasn’t good enough.

I didn’t kill all of them, of course. We had gained almost twenty new members to our community, many of which were small families. I doubted my straight-up murdering folks would make them feel at home. Marcus, however… He’d had to go.

Once I told Phil what they’d tried to do, Zach and Luke were the first to be exiled.

There’s only been a handful others we’d kicked out since then. Mostly newcomers that refused to get with the program.

I don’t quite know when I became the general of a small army. Nor I do I even remember at what point Phillip became “the Governor”. I don’t even know when I started calling him that if it was before or after Marcus. All I know is, it happened.

Those of us that could fight, that were unafraid of the undead, were sent outside the walls to scavenge and recruit. We were partnered up, given whatever weapons we wanted from the small armoury, and sent out into the world of the dead with a little pat on our backs.

My partner had been… a challenge, for lack of a better term. He was this pasty, old white guy with a dirty mind and a Southern mouth. Sexist, racist, and whatever other “ist” you could think of – this guy was it. And, my God, for a guy with one hand he could sure be handsy. At least, he had been for the first ten or so minutes after we’d first met. Once I’d made it very clear I had little issue cutting off his other hand and _feeding it_ to him, he’d kept it to himself.

Other than that, as a woman with dark skin who was from another country – even one as benign as Australia – it had been a little… tense between Merle and I for a while there.

But, somehow – and I don’t even know at what point we decided we didn’t hate each other anymore – we started getting along. Inside jokes, begrudging respect, and a ride-or-die attitude – we had the whole nine-yards. It came to the point that, suddenly, this redneck, trailer trash, white boy knew me better than anyone. And I knew him. We traded stories like they were currency and barely spent more than a few hours apart. Which was weird, in retrospect, but at the time, it hadn’t felt that way. He was like a brother to me. An older, obnoxiously irritating and horribly problematic brother.

And, as strange as it was, the feeling seemed to be mutual. He’d jump in to defend my honour at every opportunity. One of the guardsmen looking at my backside? His fist would be in their face before I even had a chance to turn around. He knew I could have done it myself – in fact, as much as he said otherwise, I knew some of the things I could do freaked him out a little. Mostly, it was the things he couldn’t explain away – like how I could hear things that he couldn’t or how my reflexes were just a fraction faster than was humanly plausible. Thankfully, he gave up questioning me about it rather quickly, and now just kind of… accepted my weirdness. For which I was thankful.

It was hard trying to come up with logical explanations about my oddities without outright lying about them.

Anyway, the two of us served beneath the Governor’s rule for longer than either of us would like to admit. I wish I could say I knew the exact moment his orders became less than favourable. To be honest, I hadn’t thought to question them. My entire life had been spent listening to orders and obeying them with little enquiry. I’d grown somewhat suspicious of his mindset near the end, there, but the only thing I could actually pinpoint was the exact moment I decided I’d had enough.

It was that night, in the haphazardly put together cells out by the old warehouse. We had brought in two strangers, members of a rival group that had made their home in the once-overrun prison. It had been a completely coincidental run-in. We had been out looking for a woman, a newcomer that had caused some “trouble”. We managed to track her to a series of small shops out by a deserted strip of road. I went around the back while my partner surveyed the storefronts. She was lucky I spotted her first. I didn’t know what he would have done with her. While I had made my growing concerns about the Governor’s current state of mind clear, he hadn’t deigned to share his opinion of the man with me.

At first, she had looked at me with suspicion. The woman I knew as Michonne had seen how close I was with the Governor, knew it was his orders I followed. But when I had jerked my head toward the field behind me, indicating for her to make a run for it, understanding dawned on her face. I was letting her go.

Unfortunately, that was right at the exact moment I heard a voice I didn’t know ask, “Merle?”

A young Asian man and a pretty, petite woman were standing out the front of one of the stores, looking up at Merle as if he had just sprouted horns from his thinning head of hair. I peeked around the corner just in time to watch Merle lift his gun and decided it was likely best to intervene before he got too trigger-happy, like he usually did.

I kept things relatively calm for about three entire seconds before Merle pistol-whipped the poor guy and forced him into the driver’s seat of the nearby sedan. The two of us piled in behind them and instructed them to drive back to the gates of Woodbury.

Everything just seemed to escalate from there.

We threw the two strangers, whose names I learned were Maggie and Glenn, into the barely kept-together cells and began our interrogation. And by “our interrogation” I mean the Governor and Merle’s attempts at intimidation.

Merle’s I could handle. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before. Berating the guy, beating him, tossing a biter in there – the usual. But the Governor?

I had been standing in the room with Merle, watching him berate Glenn, probing him for answers about the group making their home inside the prison fences, when I heard it. The sound of his belt was oddly stark against the soft sobs making their way through the solid metal wall. I knew the other two couldn’t hear it. It didn’t matter.

That was the moment I drew the line. The second I heard that belt, I knew what I had here in Woodbury was over.

Without a second of hesitation, I spun on my heel and marched out the cell door. Martinez was standing outside it, keeping guard, and caught my eye as I made my way down the hall a step to the next door down. His eyes were wide as he shook his head.

“Don’t,” he warned me.

I didn’t listen.

Lifting my booted foot, I kicked down the door to the cell next door and strode across the empty space to where the Governor stood, still undoing his belt. Maggie sat across the metal table from him, naked from the waist up, arms crossed over her bare chest as tears slid down her cheeks.

The Governor turned to face me at the sound of my sudden entrance. I pushed him aside as I peeled off my own shirt and gave it to the sobbing woman. Rapid footsteps sounded by the doorway and I knew both Merle and Martinez were standing there, watching as I rounded on the Governor with fire in my gaze.

He snarled at me. “What do you think you’re doing, Jacques?”

“Putting a stop to this,” I snapped in response, stepping back around the table.

The Governor did his best to stare me down, but he was about as intimidating to me as a baby lamb. “You don’t get to make that decision!” he screamed, spittle flying from his thin lips. “I give the orders here! Me, not you!”

“And I’ve obeyed them!” I yelled. “But I can’t stand by and let you do _this_. It’s not right and you know it!”

The Governor looked as if he were about to explode. His face was red, and his mouth kept opening and closing as if he were trying to form a response. I turned my back on him before he could, reaching out for Maggie, who had turned around to shield herself as she pulled my shirt over her head. Gently, I took her arm and began leading her towards the doorway.

Merle gave me a warning look, shaking his head just as Martinez had done. Martinez was a close friend, and Merle was my partner in crime, but I didn’t listen to either of them. Instead, I pushed my way through, pulling Maggie along with me as I lead her back into the cell where Glenn sat. The tears that had been steadily spilling down her cheeks increased tenfold when she saw what Merle’s fists had done to Glenn’s face. Once I let her go, she ran to him and began to cry as he asked her what the Governor had done.

She didn’t get a chance to answer.

The man himself burst through the partially closed door and made to grab me by the arm. I sensed him coming and spun out of his reach, turning to face him with a sneer.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” I hissed.

The Governor looked slightly taken aback. I hadn’t spoken to him like that for a long time. Too long, it would seem. “You think you can just do what you want?” he snapped back, throwing an arm wildly in the direction of the two prisoners behind me. “You want to end up in here, too? Be my guest.” 

Merle took a tentative step forwards, lifting his one remaining hand in a surrendering gesture. “Oh, come now. Ya don’t need to be like that, Governor. She’s sorry. Ain’t cha, Jacques?”

“Not really,” I replied plainly. “No.”

The exasperated look he gave me would have been comical in any other situation. What had he really expected? He knew I wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – lie. Besides, like hell I was going to apologise for stopping him raping a woman. Jesus Christ. I may be an assassin, but I wasn’t a _monster_.

“Have you forgotten who’s in charge here?” the Governor asked, his voice returning to a normal volume, though underneath the blasé tone I could hear his growing contempt. “Which one of us gives the orders and which one takes them?”

“Have _you_?” I responded, cocking my head to the side to regard him with cold, narrowed eyes.

The Governor blinked in surprise, his right eye twitching as he tried to make sense of my reply.

I gave him the curtesy of elaborating, making sure to emphasise each hissed sentence with a step in his direction. “Did you really think you had control over me? That I wasn’t only following your orders because I agreed with them? Do you think that highly of yourself that you forgot, for a moment, who I am? What I can do?”

The Governor’s legs seemed to act without his permission, pulling him back, matching my every step forward with one back. He retreated until I came to a stop, looking down at him despite the few inches of difference in our heights.

“If I had wanted that crown of yours, _Philip_, I’d fucking take it and there would be _nothing _you could do to stop me.” I stared at him with my piercing blue eyes until he dropped his gaze, swallowing, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

A moment of silence passed before I returned to my usual casual lean, the tension in my body evaporating almost instantly as the intensity in my gaze dissipated.

“Now that we’ve covered that,” I began in a chipper tone. “I’d like to continue by stating that I happen to believe freeing these two in good nature would be in our best interests as a community. However, if you say otherwise, I won’t argue.” _Because I’d be wasting by breath_.

The silence continued to stretch for another few moments before the Governor raised his gaze back up to meet mine once again. I could see the steely resolve in them, the growing sense of distrust and malcontent. He spoke in that authoritative voice, as if I hadn’t just put him in his place merely a few minutes ago.

“We keep them here.”

And that had been that.

Kind of.

No more than a few hours later, Glenn and Maggie’s people infiltrated Woodbury.

I had returned to the cells mere minutes before I knew of their presence, knocking the working guard unconscious – sorry, Andy – and picking the lock open to set them free. My intention, of course, had been to lead them out to the loose panel in the eastern fence, escorting them to safety. That had not exactly panned out, as the people from the prison had decided to launch their attack whilst I was partway through leading Glenn and Maggie to the cellblock’s exit. Once the smoke grenades went off, I brought them both to a stop and explained to them the best way to escape, telling them to keep low in the smoke and wishing them luck before we parted ways.

As much as I knew in theory that I was done in this place, I hadn’t quite accepted it emotionally just yet. After all, I had plenty of friends here, people I almost considered family. It didn’t feel right to fight on the opposite side, not in such an outright way as taking the prison’s side in this.

I should have just gone with them. I wouldn’t have ended up here if I’d just gone.

If it had been anyone other than fucking Martinez that came for me that night, I would have fought back. And I think he knew it, too. The apologetic look he gave me before forcing me up against the side of the building to chain my wrists together was the only thing that stopped me from punching him directly in the nose.

He put a bag over my head and dragged me out to the warehouse, where the sounds of curious, excited chatter met my ears. I could only partially see through the cotton fabric covering my face, but it was enough to make out the shape of the stands we often used during our Game Nights. They were as full as they’d ever been, overflowing with the townsfolk who had no doubt been gathered at the behest of the Governor.

His voice cut through the aimless whispers surrounding him, crisp and authoritative as he announced the purpose behind tonight’s entertainment.

“What can I say?” he asked the gathered people of Woodbury. “There hasn’t been a night like this since before the walls were completed.”

_Yeah. Thanks to me_. I wanted to scream, to yell at the people that our “fearless” leader had lost his damn mind, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Martinez still held my arm, keeping me in my place at the edge of the biter-lined arena. On the other side, I could see another figure being dragged forwards, bag over his head.

I knew who it was from the dirty wife-beater alone and gave an internal groan. Of course, the one time I wasn’t with him when he did something stupid, he got himself caught.

“I thought we were past it. Past the days when we all sat, huddled, scared in front of the TV during the early days of the outbreak. The fear we all felt then… we felt it again tonight.”

I could barely make out his shape, standing at the back of the stands, a blonde figure sitting in the place beside him. Andrea. She had come to Woodbury alongside Michonne; yet hadn’t heeded the other woman’s warnings. Nor had she listened to mine, when I’d tried to encourage caution around the man she was taking to bed. Well, she was about to learn. As were they all.

“I failed you!” the Governor continued, his voice breaking as if he truly were ashamed. “I promised to keep you safe. Hell, look at me.” I saw the outline of his hand gesturing towards his face, though couldn’t make out what the hell he was pointing to. “You know, I – I should tell you that we’ll be okay. That we’re safe. That tomorrow, we’ll bury our dead and endure, but I won’t. Because I can’t… Because I am afraid.”

Uneasy gasps of surprise rippled through the townsfolk.

“That’s right,” the Governor sighed. “I’m afraid of terrorists. Terrorists that want what we have – want to destroy us! And worse, because more than one of these terrorists are one of our own!”

Across the arena, Patterson pushed Merle forward with enough force to almost send him sprawling onto the sands. Thankfully, my partner kept his footing, skidding to a halt in the centre of the arena and looking around at the townsfolk that had gathered to watch what was no doubt his execution.

“Merle. A man I counted on. A man I _trusted_.” The Governor shook his head, the dismay in his voice almost, _almost_ believable. “He led ‘em here! And he let ‘em in!”

Merle opened his mouth to argue but something in the Governor’s gaze must have stopped him.

“It was you,” the Governor hissed down at him. “You lied. You betrayed us all.”

From the side of the arena I couldn’t see, someone else was pushed through the gap between the biters and onto the sands. The newcomer stumbled slightly, barely managing to maintain his balance as he came to a stop in front of Merle.

I couldn’t see their faces, but I could tell by the change of air around them that they recognised one another. They were not strangers.

I bit my lower lip. That did not bode well.

“This is one of the terrorists,” the Governor announced to his audience. “Merle’s own brother.”

Ah. Shit.

“And worse yet,” he continued, his voice growing deeper in his attempt to sound dismayed. “Merle’s influence over my most trusted – our most valuable asset to this community…”

I could see him shaking his head, as if the words he was trying to say hurt him too much to voice. Had I not already been almost ninety-nine percent sure he was about to tell the world it had been me that had helped Merle, I would have laughed. He’d gotten good at this.

Behind me, Martinez whispered, “Sorry ‘bout this, _ese_. Orders.”

He pushed me forwards, keeping his grip on my upper arm as he led me out into the sands alongside Merle and his brother. When he brought me to a stop, he let my arm go and reached up to pull the bag from my head.

“He poisoned our beloved Synnove’s mind against us. A founding member of our community!” the Governor yelled, and the stands erupted with shock and malice.

My gaze, partially obscured by the blonde strands of hair that had fallen free from my ponytail, snapped to Merle’s. He gave me a pointed look, like he was disappointed I’d let myself get caught.

“Really?” he asked, brow cocked.

“Oh, fuck you,” I snapped in response.

From up in the stands, the Governor continued his speech and I was finally able to get a good look at him. He was dishevelled and battered, as if he’d been in a fight, and across his right eye there was a white bandage, splattered with red. Someone had come for him and I hoped beyond hope that that someone had been Michonne.

“What should we do with them?” the Governor asked his people.

From my right, a distinct cry broke through the torrent of voices. “Kill them!”

I twisted in place to look for the owner, only to see an ocean of familiar faces glaring back at me. Jesus Christ. Were they really this easy to manipulate?

“Kill them! Kill them!”

Apparently so.

The chant continued as the Governor smiled down at us, a chilling grin absent of any and all warmth it had once held. I could barely recognise the man standing there.

“You wanted your brother,” he said to Merle. “Now you got him.”

Merle just looked across to the man he called brother before meeting my curious gaze. With a casual gesture towards the man standing across the arena, he grinned. “Jacques, meet my baby brother, Daryl. Baby brother, meet Jacques.”

I glanced over at the other Dixon, my gaze travelling up and down his dishevelled form. He was shorter than Merle, but not by much, and had dark, unkept hair that partially over his forehead. His ruggedly pleasant features were scrunched into a confused scowl as I took my sweet time surveying him before turning back to Merle with a cheeky grin.

“At least now I know where all the looks went in your family,” I remarked lightly.

Merle snorted and gave me the finger.

“Brother against brother,” the Governor called, promptly ruining the moment. “Partner against partner!”

I looked up at him with my upper lip curled over my teeth in a snarl.

Andrea was standing beside him now, looking up pleadingly at him as if she had expected different. Expected better of him, despite all the warnings to the contrary.

“Winner goes free! Fight to the death!”

It was _incredibly_ unlikely he’d keep that promise.

“Hey now,” I yelled out, over the cheers and jeering voices of the crowd. “I’m sensing a little unfairness here!” I jiggled my chains behind my back and gave the Governor a pointed look. “I’m the only one with chains!”

He merely looked down at me as if I were nothing to him, a fly upon his shoe. “Well, we wouldn’t want the fight over too early, now, would we?”

The voices from the crowd called out my name, called out for me to fight. It was almost as if this were any other Game Night, where I would tag-team with Merle against challengers in this very arena. We had been undefeated since the games had begun. These people knew only a fraction of what I could do and, even then, they had always put their money on me.

I looked over to Merle. His upper lip was shaking the way it often did when he was about to explode in anger.

Somehow, he managed to keep it somewhat under control. He took a step back and began to spin, looking at each member of the crowd in turn as he lifted his arms up like he used to do at the beginning of every Game Night.

“Come on, come on! I can’t hear yous!” he called out to the townsfolk.

A few scattered “Let’s go, Merle!”’s echoed around the warehouse, followed shortly by a “Get em, Jacques!”.

“Come on, ya’ll know me! I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do to prove my loyalty is to this town!” Merle continued.

Stepping further into the centre of the arena, I kept a close eye on both him and Daryl while I prepared myself to leap-frog over the chains loosely tied behind me. I knew Merle was talking shit. Knew him well enough to see that glint in his eye that meant the wheels in this balding head were beginning to turn.

From my right, Merle’s brother scoffed. “You really think this asshole’s gonna let you go?”

Merle looked at him with a smirk. “Just follow my lead, little brother. Ready, Jacques? Just like old times?”

I flashed him a wide grin before I jumped up, swinging my bound hands down and around the base of my feet so they were now in front of me. “Ready when you are, old man.”

Merle looked back to his brother, smirk growing wider as his excitement overtook his sense. “We’re gettin’ out of this right now.”

Merle and I leapt into it first. After all, we’d had plenty of practise fighting against one another in this arena. The chain linking my wrists made it a little difficult, but I managed to pull out some old moves to make it our battle somewhat believable. When I stumbled back, having been “kicked” in the chest by Merle’s dirty boot, I took a brief moment to look behind me towards Martinez. He was holding one of the Biter leads, pushing it closer to me each minute that passed.

I knew he was the weak spot. He wouldn’t shoot me, even if his life depended on it. Not after all we’d been through together. I knew it as well as he did. That was our way out.

While I had been “recovering” from Merle’s kick, the old redneck had started beating on his brother. They tussled on the ground for a moment, looking as if they were actually going at it more than they really needed to. Daryl managed to get his boot between them and kicked Merle off and when he scrambled up onto his feet, I stepped into his guard. He took a swing at me and I ducked beneath it, stepping around him and throwing my hands over his shoulders, pulling the chain taut across his throat, leaving only just enough room for him to breathe.

Merle locked eyes with me over his brother’s shoulder. He gave a little nod.

“Martinez,” I said, quiet enough so only Merle and Daryl could hear. “He’s the weak spot.”

Merle nodded. “Count o’ ten?”

“Better make it three.” I looked to the side of Daryl’s face. “You ready, little Dixon?”

He snorted in response. I took it as a yes.

Merle started a countdown.

One.

Two.


	2. The Water of Kinship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst Synnove does her best to keep Merle's mouth shut, Daryl is forced to decide if blood truly is thicker than water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day! Once again, thank you for giving my story a chance. Don't forget, feedback is 100% appreciated whether constructive or not. I know this is a bit of a long one. I apologise profusely and hope you enjoy anyway.
> 
> Thanks again for not murdering me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress

As Merle opened his mouth to yell out “three”, a quick series of cracks echoed through the air around us. Gunfire blasted through the shattered windows of the rundown warehouse, causing the crowd to scatter in panic.

Quickly, while the other two were somewhat stunned, I unhooked my chain from around Daryl’s throat and grabbed his arm. I could see the bright light flashing along to the sound of gunfire to our left and began to drag the man towards it. Merle, thankfully, snapped out of his shock quick enough to follow.

Martinez spotted us. Our gazes met for a fraction of a second before he stepped to the side, pretending to take cover from the bullets ricocheting off the metal support beams, allowing us to pass. The three of us made it out through the large entryway, where a group of people I didn’t recognise were waiting, partially hidden behind the scattered rubbish left out in the open area outside the warehouse.

“Daryl,” the closest one called. It was a man wearing a dirty flannel shirt and loose jeans, a light beard brushed across his sharp jawline. “Let’s go.”

We began to follow him when he turned and thrust an accusatory finger in Merle’s face. “You’re not going anywhere with us.”

“You really want to do this now? Come on, man.” Merle whined, gesturing for him to get a move on.

Neither man moved for a few moments before Daryl interjected. “Rick, come on.”

“We’ve got to go,” Merle insisted, glancing over his shoulder at the chaos inside the warehouse. We both knew it wouldn’t last much longer.

“Then go,” Rick growled.

Merle looked to his brother. “A little help would be nice.”

“We ain’t got time for this,” Daryl grumbled.

I spotted Maggie, coming out from behind the edge of the building with a rifle. She began to lead us toward the eastern wall, where I’d told her the easiest escape route was earlier that night.

Merle and I followed behind his brother, ignoring the scathing look from the one named “Rick” as we went.

We managed to escape rather easily, only having to clear a few biters that must have managed to slide in through the loose panel from our path. In the rush, I didn’t even think to close the panel behind us. If I paused for too long, it wasn’t as if these people would wait for me. I had to keep up of my own volition or risk leaving Merle along with them. And, honestly, I didn’t even know who would get the worst end of that situation. Them or Merle himself.

Once we were home free, the five of us made our way through the dense trees until the cool light of dawn broke over the forest. I spotted the silver car in the distance a few moments before Rick called out, “Glenn!”

“Rick?” a familiar voice responded. Glenn stepped out from behind the vehicle, parked along the side of the road. “Thank God.”

Another figure appeared beside him. It was Michonne. The two of them began to jog through the thin collection of trees towards us.

Rick lifted his hands and suddenly increased his speed, trying to reach the two of them before they spotted us. “Now, we got a problem here. I need you to back up.”

He spoke in that calming yet equally condescending voice most police officers had down to an artform and gestured for Glenn and Michonne to return to their place behind the car. It was an attempt made in vein. The moment Glenn’s blackened eye slid across to where Merle and I were approaching, his face contorted into pure rage. Beside him, Michonne took a confident step forward and lifted her sword. 

“What the hell is he doing here?” Glenn demanded; eyes locked on the man by my side. Maggie ran to him, turning to face us as she lifted her own gun at Merle just as Rick lifted his gun to point it at Michonne.

Daryl stepped in front of Merle and I, lifting a hand in defence.

“Hey, hey! Put it down!” Rick ordered Michonne, just as Merle and I lifted our hands in surrender.

“He tried to kill me!” Michonne yelled in response.

“If it wasn’t for him –“ Glenn began, but Daryl cut him off.

“He helped us get out of there,” he tried to argue. “They both did.”

“Yeah, right after they beat the shit out of you,” Rick snapped from beside him.

“Hey, we all took our licks, man,” Merle argued, gesturing between Daryl and I.

I just stayed silent, my chained hands lifted as I looked between everybody with raised brows. The last thing I wanted to do was get in the middle of this absolute clusterfuck of pointed weaponry.

“Jackass,” Daryl hissed toward his brother.

Merle began to move forward. “Hey, shut your mouth!”

Rick turned toward him just as Michonne began to step past him, her sword raised higher. He quickly turned back, gun pointed at her head as he demanded authoritatively, “Put that down now!”

Glenn still had his gun raised, pointed toward Merle until Daryl whirled around and stood clearer between them.

“Get that damn thing outta my face,” the younger Dixon yelled.

That made Merle chuckle. “Damn. You gone all native, brother.”

Daryl turned on him, gripping the strap of his crossbow in one hand and gesturing back towards the way we’d come with the other. “No more than you hangin’ out with that psycho back there.”

“Oh, yeah, man,” Merle deadpanned. “He’s a real charmer, I gotta tell you that. Hey, Jacques?”

I looked at him with wide eyes, my hands still raised. “Oh, I am not even _remotely_ getting involved in this.”

Merle scoffed before turning and catching Michonne’s gaze. “Been putting the wood to your girlfriend, Andrea,” the old man sneered as he began approaching her. “Big time, baby.”

I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him backwards before either Rick or Michonne could shove their respective weapons into his eye socket.

“Andrea’s in Woodbury?” Glenn asked, glancing between everyone, finally having lowered his gun.

“Right next to the Governor,” Daryl answered, sounding none too pleased about it.

Michonne took a step toward the younger Dixon, gradually lifting her blade in defence of her friend, when Rick whirled on her.

“I told you to drop that,” he snapped.

She took a step back.

“You know Andrea?” Rick asked her, taking a step towards her. She glanced between Merle and I, clenching her teeth as the man before her continued to press. “Hey, do you know Andrea?”

Merle interrupted before she could even make an attempt to answer. “Yep, she does,” he said, turning to me and giving me a light jab with his elbow. “Don’t she?”

“Stop bringing me into this,” I answered with a slight shake of my head.

“Seriously?” Merle grunted in exasperation before turning back to face Rick and throwing his hand in the general direction of Michonne. “Her and blondie were cuddled up all winter out in the forest. Mmm-mmm.” He gave her a sickening grin.

I rolled my eyes for good measure.

“My Nubian queen here had two pet biters,” Merle continued. “No arms, cut off the jaws. Kept ‘em in chains.” He let out a curt chuckle and glanced at me. “Kind of ironic now that I think about it, isn’t it?”

I just shook my head at him with a pointed look. _Stop bringing attention to me, jackass_.

“Shut up, bro,” Daryl growled, spinning to face us.

“Hey man. Jacques here snagged ‘em out of the woods,” Merle remarked, turning to look at Rick whilst throwing this good hand in my direction.

_I swear to God, Merle_.

“Spotted ‘em spying with those keen eyes of hers. Got you both before you even knew she was there, didn’t she?” he asked, directing that one at Michonne, who looked across to me with a neutral expression.

She, thankfully, didn’t answer. At least someone understood why I might not want that kind of attention.

“Lucky for them, too,” Merle continued. “Andrea was close to dying.”

“Is that why she’s with him?” Maggie asked, looking at Michonne.

Merle nodded, again interjecting before anyone else could answer. “Yeah,” he said with a smirk. “Snug as two little bugs.”

The group shared a few looks before Merle stepped up to Rick, sneering that infuriating sneer of his.

“So, what you gonna do now, Sheriff? Huh? Surrounded by a bunch of liars, thugs, and cowards.”

“Shut up!” Rick snapped, barely even glancing at him. His focus was too heavily on Michonne.

“Oh, man. Look at this.” Merle shook his head as he looked this Rick guy up and down. “Pathetic. All these guns and no bullets in ‘em.”

“Merle, shut up,” both Daryl and I yelled at the same time.

Merle whirled on me. “Shut up yourself! So much for stayin’ out of it!”

He began to wave that stupid metal appendage in my face, and I reached up to grab it with both my chained hands, ducking beneath it and stepping around him to pull it taut behind his back. A hoarse yell of pain escaped him as he fell to his knees and I bent down slightly to speak directly into his ear.

“You need to stop talking, you fucking moron,” I growled.

He tried to turn back to face me, but my grip on his arm made him hiss out a curse, forcing him to remain with his back to me. Still, that didn’t seem to stop him from continuing his idiotic rant. “You callin’ me a damn moron? What about them, huh? Bunch of fuckin’ pussies don’t know jack shit about –“

I pulled his arm tighter. “_Shut_. _Up_.”

Merle stuttered to a stop, partially from the pain and partially because I’d used my Don’t-Fucking-Push-It voice.

With a sigh, I turned to look up at Rick. Some kind of animal instinct inside me was telling me he was the alpha of this group, that he’d be the one to plead sense to. The man was looking down at me with a mixture of agitated suspicion and curiosity.

“Look, I’ll keep him here and I’ll keep him quiet. Why don’t you guys sort this out amongst yourselves?” I suggested, jerking my head towards the car parked by the road a few metres away. “Us standing here, putting in our two cents every second word is just going to make it harder for everyone to discuss it calmly.”

Merle’s body jerked slightly, as if he were about to open his mouth to argue. Again, I pulled his arm. Besides the torrent of curses and insults growled at my expense, he kept his opinion on my suggestion to himself.

Rick watched me closely for a moment. His expression was hard, gaze searching, as if he were trying to understand the angle I was playing at. I met his eyes evenly, keeping my own expression neutral, waiting for him to finish surveying me.

It took a tense moment, but he finally let out a huff and nodded, turning and gesturing for everyone to make their way over to the car.

Daryl waited an extra moment; his gaze going from his brother’s pained face and back up to mine. It seemed to take him twice as long to make up his mind about whether or not he trusted me enough to keep his brother on a leash.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’ve got him.”

Merle hissed out another curse.

Daryl muttered a soft, “Asshole,” toward his brother before giving me an appreciative nod and trailing off after Rick.

Once they were far enough away, I let Merle’s arm go and he rose to his feet, whirling on me with a feral scowl.

“The hell was that for?” he hissed.

I glared up at him. “You were acting like a fucking dick. You know that, right?”

He opened his mouth to snap what was likely some long-winded insult, but I lifted my hand to cut him off. The group were back at the car now, far enough away to give the illusion of privacy. A regular human wouldn’t be able to make out the sounds of their voices from where Merle and I stood. But I wasn’t human – not even a little – and I could hear every word.

“They’re talking,” I whispered to Merle, bidding him to keep his mouth closed.

His eyes grew wide for a second before the realisation dawned on him. “You listenin’ with them big ole ears o’ yours?”

I gave him a side-eye and lifted one hand to protectively touch the tip of my pointed ear. “Leave my ears alone, asshole. And shut up. If you want to know what they’re saying, I need quiet.”

Merle let out a huffing breath through his nose before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against a nearby tree.

“The Governor’s probably on the way to the prison right now,” I heard Daryl say, his voice barely above a whisper. “Merle and the girl, they know how he thinks. She was the guy’s damn right-hand. Besides. We could use the muscle.”

“I’m not having him at the prison,” Rick hissed in response. “Do you really want him sleeping in the same cellblock as Carol or Beth?”

“He ain’t a rapist,” Daryl snapped.

“Well, his buddy is,” interjected another voice. Glenn.

I cringed at the memory, feeling my skin begin to crawl.

“If it weren’t for that girl,” Glenn continued, voice low, “I don’t want to think about what would have happened.”

Maggie’s voice was soft as she spoke. “She stopped him.” 

Rick went silent for a moment. “So you want them to stay?”

“We owe _her_,” Glenn responded evenly. “Not him.”

“We can’t take one and not the other,” Rick answered. “Not when they were both buddy-ing up with the Governor.”

“They ain’t buddies no more,” Daryl put in. “Not after what happened last night.”

“There is no way Merle’s gonna live at the prison without putting everyone at each other’s throats,” Rick cautiously explained. I could tell he was trying to deescalate Daryl’s rising temper. “And I don’t know anything about that girl except that she’s close with your brother, which doesn’t exactly make her look good.”

“Ouch,” I whispered to myself.

Merle’s attention peaked. “What? What they sayin’?”

“Shut up. Let me listen.”

He huffed once again, though thankfully remained silent as I closed my eyes to focus.

“So, what? You’re gonna cut Merle and the girl loose but bring the Last Samurai home with us?” Daryl let out a curt, humourless laugh.

“She’s not coming back.” Rick’s voice was clear and concise. He’d made up his mind about that long ago and it showed in his stern tone.

“She’s not in a state to be on her own,” Glenn said softly.

“She did bring you guys to us,” Maggie tried to argue.

“And then ditched us,” Daryl snapped.

“At least let my dad stich her up,” she simply added, pleading but not too desperate.

“She’s too unpredictable,” Rick answered.

“That’s right,” Daryl huffed. “We don’t know who she is, but Merle? Merle’s blood.”

“No,” Rick sighed. “Merle’s your blood. My blood, my family, is standing right here and waiting for us back at the prison. And you’re part of that family.”

“But he’s not,” Daryl guessed. His voice sounded close to breaking, as if he were growing desperate to make them understand.

“He’s not.”

There was a stretch of silence before I heard the sounds of boots upon the asphalt and Daryl’s gruff voice. “Man, ya’ll don’t know. Fine. We’ll fend for ourselves.”

The sound of a car trunk opening made me open my eyes and I looked up the slight hill, up to where they were still gathered on the road. Merle did the same.

“The hell’s –“

“Shut up,” I hissed for the third goddamn time, watching and listening as Daryl pulled a backpack from the trunk of the silver car.

_Oh, no. Don’t do it_.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Rick tried to explain, but Daryl cut him off, slinging the backpack over his shoulder.

“No him, no me.”

“Daryl,” Rick sighed. “You don’t have to do that.”

No, he didn’t. And he shouldn’t. I’d barely known these people for more than a handful of hours, but I could tell they cared about that man more than he’d likely been cared for ever before. It wasn’t right, pulling him away from them like this. I wanted to yell at Merle to say something, to tell his brother to stay behind, though I knew that would have been pointless. Merle did what best suited Merle and no amount of scathing glares or threats of violence would ever change that.

“It was always me and Merle before this,” Daryl stated simply.

A simple, desperate, “Don’t,” escaped Rick in a harsh breath.

I frowned as Merle pushed himself off the tree and stood by my side, watching the unfolding situation with barely restrained glee.

“What’re they sayin’?”

“Daryl’s leaving,” I answered, making sure my tone suggested my disagreement with the idea.

Merle glanced down at me with a grin. “For real?”

“That isn’t a good thing.”

“The hell it ain’t! That’s my baby bro!”

I turned and smacked him hard on the shoulder, forgetting for a moment that my hands were bound together. My opposite hand almost smacked me in the face as it was pulled along, which made Merle bark out a laugh and effectively ruined my violent attempt to get him to see sense.

“Come on, bro!” Merle called out to Daryl just as Rick called out his name.

Daryl ignored the sheriff, stepping off the edge of the asphalt and into the forest. He kept walking, shoulders hunched as the others called out to him, all but begging him not to go. I bit my lower lip, watching Rick staring at Daryl’s back as he got walked further and further into the trees. As soon as he was in reach, Merle clapped an arm around his shoulder and barked out a triumphant laugh.

“That’s my boy,” he cheered.

Daryl kept his head down for a few more steps before looking up, his gaze catching mine for a fraction of a second. That was all the time I needed to see the damage his decision had caused within him. It had almost killed him to tear himself away from Rick and the others, I could see it.

He looked away before I could give him a reassuring, somewhat sad smile, and allowed himself to be led away by Merle.

“Comin’, sweetheart?” the older Dixon called over his shoulder as they began to make their way deeper into the forest.

I spared one glance up towards Rick and the others, who were still standing by the edge of the asphalt, watching Daryl disappearing into the trees. Rick’s eyes met mine, crystalline blue and rimmed in red. I gave him an apologetic smile before turning to follow Merle into the forest.

#####

“There ain’t nothing out here but mosquitos and ants.”

Daryl adjusted his hold on the crossbow as he twisted partially around to look at Merle. I trailed behind, trying to keep the jangling chains clasped in my palms in order to avoid the deafening sound. It wasn’t exactly working.

“Patience, little brother,” Merle mused. “Sooner or later, a squirrel is bound to scurry across your path.”

“Never seen a squirrel in person,” I remarked without thinking.

Both Merle and Daryl stopped and turned to look at me.

I brought myself to a halt and returned their shocked gazes with a cocked brow. “What?”

“How long you lived here?” Merle asked.

“Couple of years,” I answered.

“And you ain’t never –“

“Not once,” I interrupted. “Seen a possum. Seen a raccoon. Never seen a squirrel.”

“Well, fuck me sideways and call me Eileen.” Merle laughed. “We gon’ find ourselves a furry little friend for ya.”

I snorted with a shake of my head before lifting my bound hands up to eye level. “You really think one’s gonna come anywhere near this racket?” I asked, shaking the chains for emphasis. I was just glad I’d worn my leather jacket that night, which had so far served as a barrier between my skin and the metal.

Daryl cringed at the sound.

“Fair point,” Merle agreed.

A slow grin began to form on my face. “You know… If you were any kind of gentleman, Merle, my dear…” I had to bite back a laugh as I looked him square in the eye and said, “You’d give me a _hand_ getting these off.”

It took a second before the joke actually registered, but I could tell the moment it did. His slightly confused expression suddenly smoothed out into pure unamusement whilst my resolve to hold back the laugher bubbling in the base of my throat began to crack.

When my gaze slid across to Daryl, at the slightest of twitches pulling at the corner of his mouth, I lost it.

Merle grumbled out a, “I hate you,” before turning heel and continuing through the forest.

“Ah,” I breathed, sobering slowly. “Never gets old.”

After flashing Daryl a wide grin from which he quickly averted his gaze, I began to trudge after Merle, holding my chained hands to my chest as I walked in order to avoid the incessant jingling.

Daryl followed behind, slinging his crossbow back over his shoulder. “We’d have better luck going through one of them houses we passed on the turnoff?” he yelled over me to his brother.

Merle glanced over his shoulder at him with a hoarse laugh. “Is that what your new friends taught you? Hmm? How to loot for booty?”

“We’ve been at it for hours,” Daryl argued. “Why don’t we find a stream, look for some fish?”

Merle snorted. “I think you’re just tryin’ to get lead me back to the road, man. Get me over to that prison.”

The distant, tell-tale sound of nearby biters began to filter through the air, drifting from somewhere to our north-east. I said nothing, as neither man had noticed the sound as of yet, and it was far enough away not to be of much concern.

“They got shelter,” Daryl pointed out, using a nearby tree trunk to support himself as he climbed over a fallen branch. “Food. A pot to piss in.”

“I’d be inclined to agree with you,” I put in, turning partially to face him. “If it weren’t for the fact your sheriff friend would just as soon shoot your brother in the face than shake his hand.”

“I heard that!” Merle growled from a few feet in front of us.

I lifted my hands, biting back a grin. “That one was unintentional, I swear.”

He just scoffed something that sounded a lot like the word “bitch” before continuing on.

Daryl moved past me, stepping through the dense forest floor without barely stepping on a crunching leaf let alone a stray stick. His footfalls were almost naturally silent, something which I found myself admiring. I knew he and Merle had learnt to hunt at a young age, but even Merle made a misstep more often than not. Daryl moved almost flawlessly through the woods. He could have been one of my kind, it seemed to come so easily for him.

“Look, it might not be that bad an idea!” he called to his brother.

“For you, maybe,” Merle responded. “But Jacques is right. Ain’t gonna be no damn party for me.”

“Everyone will get used to each other.”

I could tell Daryl was growing almost desperate. He had almost instantly regretted his decision to join his brother, moved more by the idea of family than the reality of what he had already had. My heart bled for the guy.

The sound of those biters was growing louder yet remained far enough that neither Dixon brother could hear them over the sounds of their own voices.

“They’re all dead,” Merle remarked, barely a shred of remorse in his voice.

“_Merle_,” I hissed. “You don’t know that.”

“You and I both know the Governor’s probably hosting a housewarming party where he’s gonna bury what’s left of Officer Friendly and the rest of ‘em,” Merle responded.

I didn’t know that. What I did know was that the Governor wouldn’t let what they had done just slide by. He’d retaliate. The only problem with that was now he no longer had me or Merle. We had always been an integral part of his planning and execution, but now? Half out of his mind, ruled by vengeance and ego? Even I didn’t know what he was capable of anymore.

Daryl, having decided he was done with this conversation, continued past where Merle had come to a stop, barely giving us a passing glance over his shoulder as he called out, “Let’s hook some damn fish.”

#####

“Smells to me like Sawhatchee Creek.”

“We didn’t go far enough west. There’s a river down there. Gotta be the Yellow Jacket.”

“You have a stroke, boy?” Merle coughed a laugh. “We ain’t never even come close to Yellow Jacket.”

My God. Did they ever stop bickering?

Daryl pulled the strap of his crossbow tight across his broad chest as he looked down the slight hill at his brother. “We didn’t go west.”

He was right about that. The non-stop gurgling moans coming from the biters in the distance had remained at a somewhat constant volume, drifting further from the east now than it had been from the north. We’d remained on a near straight line since we’d committed to the plan of catching some fish. A plan I desperately wished would hurry up and come to fruition. I was growing irritable with hunger at this point.

“Just a little bit south,” Daryl continued, waving a hand to the east. “That’s what I think.”

“You know what I think?” Merle asked, lifting up his metallic arm. “I may have lost a hand, but you lost your sense of direction.”

“And maybe you’ve both lost the one brain cell you shared between you,” I added in with a grin.

They both looked at me with almost matching blank expressions.

“Yeah,” Daryl murmured. “We’ll see.” And with that, he turned back toward the direction he’d been heading. Towards the sound of biters in the distance.

I begrudgingly began to follow with Merle close on my heals.

“You want a bet, little brother?”

I opened my mouth to put in my own bet, siding with Daryl as I could already hear the sounds of rushing water nearby, but the younger Dixon brother beat me to it.

“I don’t wanna bet nothin’,” Daryl responded. He had begun marching faster, his footfalls no longer falling silently through the underbrush. “It’s just a body of water. Why’s everything gotta be a damn competition with you?”

I sensed the drop seconds before Daryl’s foot went over the edge. As fast as I could move, I leapt across the empty space between us and latched onto his upper arm with both hands. Anchored by my grip, he managed to regain his footing, balancing at the edge of a sharp drop off. The rapid water of the river below struck the sharp rocks at the edge of the bank with enough force that I felt a droplet hit the exposed skin of my cheek.

Daryl’s gaze fixed upon those rocks for a moment as he let out a shaky breath before turning to look at me. The moment he realised how close we stood, he swallowed and cleared his throat, muttering a “thank you” before stepping away.

Merle let out a whistle. “Nice catch, darlin’.”

I gave him a side-long look, cocking a brow and opening my mouth to make what would have been a rather unfriendly comment when a new sound suddenly filtered through the biter’s moans. My head jerked to the side, to the east and I strained my ears, trying to discern the reality of what I had originally thought the sound had been.

Merle knew the look, knew what it meant when I went suddenly still and silent. He, for the first time in hours, finally kept his mouth shut.

There it was again. The sound. Piercing through the air, cutting through me like a knife.

“Do you hear that?” I asked, despite knowing full well they likely did not. It was almost as if the shock of hearing such a sound in the middle of nowhere had rendered me moronic.

Merle snorted. “You know we don’t. What is it?”

I let out a long breath before turning partially to look at him, my brows furrowed in a deep frown. “It’s a baby.”

“What?” Daryl asked. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

I didn’t answer. My feet began moving before I could stop them, pulling me toward the sound of cries, through the forest. Merle spat out a curse before following, grabbing his brother and dragging him along. Before long, we’d followed the riverbank far enough that the bridge had come into view.

Merle called out for me to stop. “What the hell you doin’, Jacques?”

I slowed to a halt and turned to him, gesturing towards the bridge. “Baby.”

“Oh, come on,” he coughed. “Why don’t you piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining, too?”

“Listen, you prick,” I snapped. The sound was loud enough now that their ears should be able to pick it up.

Merle just stared at me and shook his head. “That there? That’s the sound of a couple of coons making love, sweet love.”

I looked him dead in the eye as I said, “One of these days I might just take off that other hand to gag you with it.”

“I hear it,” Daryl breathed suddenly, taking a step forwards and away from his menace of a brother. “It’s a damn baby.”

The poor guy sounded almost as confused as he was shocked, his bright, narrow eyes falling to me with what I could only assume was suspicion. Like I’d somehow planted the baby or knew it would be there.

His brother had reacted much the same way when I’d first let on that my ears were much sharper than the average human. At one point, I remember him actually calling me a witch. A fucking witch.

_Southerners_.

I didn’t wait for the flow of questions, nor did I just stand there beneath his suspicious glare. Without another moment of pause, I took off towards the nearby road. Daryl followed behind me with little hesitation. Neither of us waited for Merle.

We arrived at the edge of the forest where the trees gave way to road and burst out into the open. To our right, the asphalt gave way to the cracked concrete foundation of the bridge, upon which sat a red car, surrounded by biters. There was a man standing atop the roof, swinging a rusted machete in a fevered rhythm, trying to clear the surrounding area of biters.

I could hear the baby crying from inside the car, now met with the sounds of a woman’s frightened sobs.

Both Daryl and I looked at one another, no doubt thinking the same thing. We began to run towards the car just as Merle broke through the tree line behind us with an irritated gruff.

“Oh, come on!” 

We ignored him.

The man atop the car spotted us coming as Daryl pulled his crossbow from his shoulder and took a shot at the biter closest to the man’s overhanging boot. It dropped instantly, the arrow piercing through its skull as easy as a knife through butter.

It didn’t occur to me until I was close enough to reach the biters that I did not in fact have a weapon. I was going to have to go all old school on this one.

Daryl began reloading his crossbow, pausing mid-approach and enabling me to overtake him. Without slowing, I charged forwards and leapt, planting a solid fly-kick into the closest biter’s ugly, rotting face. It careened backwards, knocking two of its pals down as it toppled. I slammed my booted foot down on its face, crushing its weakened skull beneath my sole. Another biter dropped beside me, curtsy of Daryl’s arrow.

The man above us was calling for help in both Spanish and English.

As I slammed my foot down on one of the other fallen biters, I felt Merle blow past me. He marched through the biters, thrusting the pointed end of his haphazardly designed metal hand through two of their heads before leaning down to inspect the inside of the car.

A biter behind me was getting uncomfortably close, forcing me to take my eye off Merle for a fraction of a second to dodge the rotting, outstretched hands. I stepped behind the undead creature and threw my hands over its head, catching its throat with the chain. Pulling the biter back, I waited until I felt the pressure of cold concrete on my back before turning. I yanked my chain to the side and watched as the biter tumbled over the crumbling railing of the bridge and into the rapid waters below.

At this point, I could hear a commotion much different than that of an ordinary biter attack and turned back to see Merle making a nuisance of himself by the driver’s side door. The woman inside was screaming for him to get out, as was the man, who had now leapt down onto the concrete foundation of the bridge. He didn’t seem to feel confident enough to make a move on Merle, not with Daryl standing so close, a freshly notched arrow resting atop his crossbow, but he was yelling in both Spanish and English that he would kill him if he touched his wife.

Merle chuckled as he began rifling through their possessions. “That ain’t no way to say thank you,” he remarked.

The baby was absolutely screaming at this point. My heart tightened in my chest.

“Get away from my car!” the man yelled, the grip on his bloodied machete growing so tight his knuckles were turning white. “We don’t have anything!”

Again, Merle ignored the man. “Least you could do was give us an enchilada or something, huh? Easy does it, _señorita_. Everything’s gonna be fine.” 

I took a step forwards, intent on stopping him, though I needn’t have bothered.

Moments before I could grab Merle by the strap of his dirty wifebeater, his brother turned his crossbow and pointed it at his exposed back.

“Get out of the car,” he growled.

Merle went still, turning his head slightly to the side. “I know you ain’t talking to me, brother.”

Daryl turned his gaze to the man standing by the car’s bonnet and jerked his head toward the driver’s side door. “Get in your car and get the hell out of here.”

Merle still hadn’t moved. I stepped forward and followed through on my plan to grab the moron by the strap of his shirt, yanking him backwards and away from the open door.

He yelled out a curse, swinging his arm to free himself from my grip. “The hell, woman?”

Daryl kept the crossbow pointed at his brother, though his gaze remained on the Hispanic man behind him. “Get in the car! Go, go! Move it!”

The man did as he was instructed, giving Merle a mighty fierce glare as he walked past him, climbing into the open driver’s side door and slamming it closed.

Neither of us spoke until the car had taken off down the road, after which Merle turned the full force of his anger onto his brother. “The shit you doing, pointing that thing at me?” he snapped, stepping forward and swatting the crossbow.

Daryl let it fall to his side. “They were scared, man.”

Merle snorted. “Rude it what they were. They owed us a token of gratitude.”

“They didn’t owe us shit, jackass,” I hissed, the same time Daryl remarked, “They didn’t owe us anything.”

Merle looked between us with wide, disbelieving eyes, gesturing at us with his good hand in frustration. “The hell is this, huh? You two helpin’ people out of the goodness of your hearts, now?” His bright gaze landed on me. “You? Little Miss McMurder, helping out the good people of Georgia?” An incredulous snort escaped him before he turned his attention back to his brother. “And you? Helpin’ people even though you might die? That something your pal Sheriff Rick teach you?”

“There was a baby!” Daryl yelled, throwing up his empty hand in exasperation.

“Oh, otherwise you would’a left ‘em to the biters, then?” Merle asked sarcastically, shaking his head before he pushed between us and began making his way back towards the line of trees.

Daryl didn’t move. His eyes remained fixed on his brother’s retreating form. “I went back for you, man.”

I turned and looked at him, brows raised. Merle had told me all about his last group, at least as much as he’d cared to, including how they had handcuffed him to a roof in the middle of downtown Atlanta with no key and a horde of biters in the stairwell. I’d been appalled when I’d first heard the story, though the longer I’d spent standing next to the man, the more I’d come to respect his previous group’s decision to leave him for dead. A little extreme, perhaps, but I certainly understood the temptation.

Merle stopped mid-step and turned to face us, his face contorted into a scowl.

“You weren’t there,” Daryl continued. “And I didn’t cut off you hand, neither. You did that, way before they locked you up on that roof.”

I glanced back over to Merle, watching his upper lip beginning to twitch in anger as he listened to his brother.

“You asked for it,” Daryl snapped, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction.

“You know what’s funny to me?” Merle asked, pursing his lips in that indignant way of his. “You and Sheriff Rick are like this now.” He held up his hand with his fore and middle finger twisted around one another. “Right?”

Daryl didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Merle’s gaze turned to me. “Hey, you up for a bet, sweetheart?”

I cocked a brow, remaining silent. This was a brother-to-brother fight and I didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

“Psh. ‘Course you do. You always do.” Merle looked back to Daryl with a grin. “I bet you a pretty penny my little bro here never told Officer Friendly that we was plannin’ to rob that camp blind. Did you?”

Daryl’s gaze dropped to his feet and I got the distinct feeling he had never, not even back then, been entirely okay with their original plan. “It didn’t happen,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” Merle scoffed. “It didn’t ‘cause I wasn’t there to help you.”

With that, he turned and walked back into the forest.

I looked towards Daryl, waiting a few moments after he’d begun to follow his brother before I trailed behind. It was to give them the illusion of privacy and they both probably knew it, but it my slight distance seemed to help enough that Daryl didn’t think twice about yelling out his next accusation.

“Like when we were kids, huh?” he called, marching through the underbrush after his brother, slinging his crossbow back over his shoulder. “Who left who then?”

Merle spun on the spot with fire in his eyes. “What? Huh? That why I lost my hand?”

Daryl stepped further forward, right into Merle’s face as he pointed at his brother and snarled, “You lost your hand ‘cause you’re a simpleminded piece of shit!”

“Yeah?” Merle asked before grabbing onto Daryl’s shirt.

The younger brother tried to pull away, but his foot slid down the slight incline, pulling him off balance. He slid down to his knees as Merle’s grip on his shirt caused a violet rip in the fabric to open up, exposing Daryl’s bare back.

The two men kind of froze in place. I felt my own feet come to a complete stop as I stared at the red scars that criss-crossed over his skin. My mouth parted slightly in shock before I gathered my sense enough to turn away, averting my gaze. I had known, at least in theory, that Merle’s father hadn’t exactly been a kind man. It took one to know one, I guess, but it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that he and Daryl had shared the same upbringing. The same abuse.

“I – I, uh…” Merle began, letting go of Daryl’s shirt and taking a step back. “I didn’t know he was –“

“Yeah,” Daryl snapped, trying to readjust his backpack and crossbow to cover the exposed skin of his back. “He did. He did the same to you. It’s why you left first.”

Slowly, the younger Dixon got to his feet, his eyes glancing over to me as if he were embarrassed I’d seen him in such a state. I met his gaze evenly for a brief second, making sure to keep my expression neutral. The last thing he needed was to think I felt sorry for him. I didn’t, not really. It was more a feeling of understanding, of a deeply seeded sense of anger that originated from my own dark memories. He looked away quickly.

“I had too, man,” Merle tried to explain, his miserable expression almost pleading. “I would’a killed him otherwise.”

I tensed a little, feeling a slight sting from his words. He left his baby brother alone with a man who beat on him just so he wouldn’t end up doing what I had.

Daryl adjusted the strap of his backpack and, without turning around to look at his brother, began walking.

Merle remained standing, watching his brother for a moment before yelling, “Where you goin’?”

“Back where I belong,” Daryl called over his shoulder.

Merle looked to me, confused as to what to do next. I merely shrugged and started following behind his younger brother.

“I can’t go with you,” he yelled in a hoarse voice. “I tried to kill the black bitch. Damn near killed the Chinese kid.”

Daryl didn’t look back. “He’s Korean.”

“_Whatever_!” Merle began to stumble along behind us, reaching out to steady himself on a nearby low-hanging branch. “Doesn’t matter, man. I can’t go with you, which means you can’t either, Jacques.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Says who?”

He opened his mouth to argue but just ended up screaming gibberish in frustration, looking to the sky and throwing up his hands in defeat.

Daryl continued walking. “You know,” he said over his shoulder. “I might be the one walking away, but you’re the one that’s leaving. Again.”

_Damn_. I didn’t look back to see how the older Dixon had reacted to that. I didn’t need to. The sound of his dragging footsteps trailing along behind us was answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you I was inpatient. I waited - what? - two days before posting the next chapter.   
Am I excited or just weak of will? You be the judge. <3


	3. The Hand That Fed and Fed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove bids Rick to allow her and Merle to stay and gets a glimpse into the lives of the people within the Prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day, G'day, G'day. Look at me, executing patience and not spam posting ready-written chapters like bullets from a machine gun.  
Once again, I want to express how thankful I am to all of you! Whether you leave Kudos, a comment, or simply like to read from the shadows like a literacy assassin, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  
Hope you enjoy this chapter!

We had been walking in absolute silence for almost an hour before I heard the unmistakable crack echo from somewhere in the distance.

I could tell by the way Daryl suddenly stopped in front of me that he’d heard it, too. He turned his head to look at Merle and I over his shoulder, brows furrowed beneath the strands of hair hanging over his face.

“Was that –“

His question was cut off by the sudden, rapid sound of gunfire in the distance. We all spat out a curse before taking off in the direction of the sound, the same direction I imagined the prison was in. With my hands still bound, I had to pay close attention to where I stepped, which hindered my speed enough that I was only able to barely overtake Daryl. Usually, I was faster than any and all humans in the vicinity by quite a decent margin, but I’d almost made a habit of purposefully slowing myself down to not appear weirder than they all already thought I was. Now, however, I’d thrown caution to the wind.

Merle knew I was fast. He knew I could see and hear things almost five times better than he could. And he knew I was strong – stronger than my leanly muscled body should have allowed me to be. At this point, I think he’d just accepted it. After all, it had been the reason I’d saved his ass so many times.

Daryl, though. I didn’t know how he’d handle it, but I also knew it would crush him if anything happened to his friends at the prison. So, I didn’t hold myself back. Not on purpose. Not this time.

I broke through the tree line almost a full thirty seconds before they did. The sight that awaited me brought me to a slow halt. Biters had infested the grounds inside the fence, having wondered in through the broken gate. A familiar truck sat upon the grassy hill inside the fence, one I recognised from the Governor’s stash of vehicles. It was one of the biter trucks.

I surveyed the situation as quickly as I could, my gaze catching the movement by the side of the prison fence, where the outline of a familiar figure caught my eye. Rick was pushed up against the wire, struggling against the group of biters currently making a move to surround him. He didn’t have a weapon.

Daryl broke free of the forest and stuttered to a shocked halt beside me.

I reached down without looking and pulled the bowie knife from his belt, ignoring his yelp of protest as I kicked off once again, sprinting across the grassy plane towards Rick. Mere moments before I reached him, I felt an arrow blaze past me. It buried itself in the forehead of one of the biters surrounding the sheriff.

I got the one standing next to it, leaping up and burying Daryl’s bowie knife into the top of its skull. Even with my bound hands, I made short work of the next three before Daryl and Merle both arrived to help take out the other five or so.

Rick looked between the three of us, nodding at each in turn before reaching out and grabbing Daryl’s shoulder in relief.

It was a touching moment, brief though it was.

Rick looked at each of us, his face drenched with sweat and his eyes holding an intense, near crazed look as he turned to peer through the fence.

The field beyond was lost, taken now by the dead as they mindlessly shuffled through the untrimmed grass, the sounds of their moans drawing more of their kind in through the ruined gate. Both Daryl and Rick remained standing before the fence, gripping onto the wire, glaring hatefully at the creatures that now walked on their land.

I took a step back, looking at Merle with a tight frown. This had been something I had suggested to Philip, once, long ago. It had been intended to be a scare tactic more than a means for extermination. However, that had been back near the beginning. When we had all been concerned about the possibility of another community rising up nearby and wanting what we had.

Rick barely looked in our direction as he began walking, along the fence line and toward the side of the prison. Apparently, there was an alternative entrance. Daryl followed along behind him dutifully. Merle and I exchanged one more look before silently deciding to do the same.

When we arrived by the door, a rusted metal thing that looked as if it would be more at home on Alcatraz than in the midst of Georgia, Rick turned so fast on his heel, his boot literally kicked up a cloud of dust.

Instantly, I lifted my hands. Both were coated in biter blood and I still had Daryl’s bowie knife gripped loosely in my left hand. “Hey, I know you don’t want us here,” I quickly said, hoping to get a word in before Merle opened his big, stupid mouth to say something aggressively unhelpful. “And I understand why – I do. But neither of us has anywhere else to go.”

Rick cocked his head slightly to the side and surveyed me from head to toe, eyes narrowed in thought. His dark hair stuck to the skin of his creased forehead, beads of sweat sting clinging to the strands.

I sensed Merle taking a step forwards and quickly side stepped in front of him, effectively placing myself between he and Rick. “This is your place,” I continued quickly, keeping my tone perfectly polite. “We understand that. We respect it. It’s your call to do with us what you will. Want us to leave? We’ll go. Want us to stay and pull our weight? We’ll clear that field single-handedly.” I paused, considering my words and, before I could think better of it, opened my mouth once again. “Well, I mean. He’ll do it single-handedly. I have two.”

Merle grumbled something particularly unfriendly under his breath.

Rick’s demeanour seemed to shift slightly. He straightened, pulling his shoulders back as if he’d been slouching this entire time, and took a deep breath. The edges of those bright, crystalline blue eyes of his seem to loosen, no longer narrowed in my direction with unveiled suspicion. One side of his mouth turned down at the corners in a lopsided frown as he weighed his decision.

From beside him, Daryl took a shuffling step forwards, looking at his friend with a troubled expression. “Come on, man. They said they’d help.”

Rick barely even acknowledged him, too caught up in his own thoughts.

“I know it isn’t ideal,” I tried, giving the sheriff a slight smile. “Having both Merle and I here might make things… _uncomfortable_ for a little while. But, I can assure you we will _both_ –” I glanced over my shoulder pointedly at Merle before looking back to Rick “– make an effort to keep the peace.”

His gaze never once strayed from either Merle or I, his body almost rigid as he took in a long, steadying breath and pursed his lips in thought. A few tense moments of silence passed before, finally, he nodded.

It was slight and barely discernible, and he definitely didn’t stick around to further clarify, turning immediately to open the door and storm inside. I took it.

With an arrogant grin flashed in Merle’s direction, I began to follow the tense sheriff inside the prison walls. Merle himself was thankfully too relieved to even make a smartass remark – a miracle in and of itself.

We could stay. We weren’t exactly welcomed, but we could stay. And that was good enough for me.

#

I should have known there’d be a downside.

A cage. Why I hadn’t seen Rick throwing Merle and I into a cell whilst he deliberated amongst his people was beyond me. I mean, it was _prison_. It was literally built for people like Merle and I. We’d slept the night on an uncomfortable concrete bench and neither of our moods were particularly better for it, but at least we’d had a roof over our heads.

The main room of the cellblock itself was made up of a series of circular tables and benches. A grated mezzanine ran along the side and back walls, ending with a pair of metal stairs on either end, and overlooking the cell built into the corner of the room beside the concrete stairs that lead up to the entryway.

It was from that cell tucked into the corner that Merle and I watched the remaining members of Rick’s group, where they were gathered a few feet away in the block’s main hall of cells. They were gearing up – as best they could with their limited resources.

Merle and I spoke in soft voices between ourselves, debating the numerous means the Governor would likely use to attack the prison next. He, of course, believed the Governor would come crashing through their one remaining gate and light up the place with all the firepower we had oh-so-generously gifted him with, killing everyone caught in the crossfire. I disagreed. He was a rash fool at times, that was true, and my grasp on the reality of his mindset was not what it had once been, but I had taught him a lot during our time together. The capacity to think like a sly, cunning assassin was buried barely an inch deep in that rotting mind of his.

He wouldn’t come crashing through their doors. Not yet, anyway. He still had an opportunity to manipulate this situation in his favour. Either to fix it and become the diplomatic hero, or to provoke it until he truly made villains of these people, enabling him to become the warrior hero.

It was difficult to discuss in depth, though, considering half my attention was divided between Merle and the conversation going on between Rick and the others. Their raised voices had effectively shut both Merle and I up, our nosey asses almost instantly tuning in to the unfolding argument.

No one particularly wanted either Merle or I there, which was understandable, but their main source of tension came from the undecided notion of what to do next. Leave or stay? Their group was split between the two.

They argued for a few more minutes before Merle felt the need to make an input. Because, really, whenever didn’t he?

“Better to live like rats,” he remarked, from behind his cell wall. Unironically.

“You got a better idea?” Rick asked, cocking a dark brow.

“Yeah,” Merle responded. “We should have slid out of here last night and lived to fight another day.”

I slowly rose from my sitting position, coming to stand beside him to look out through the wire wall before me at the group of people down the hall.

“But we lost that window, didn’t we?” Merle continued. “What do you think, Jacques? Reckon he got scouts on every road out of this place by now?”

“Likely,” I answered with a curt nod.

“We ain’t scared of that prick,” came Daryl’s voice from the second story row of cells. He was bending over the railing to look at us.

“Ya’ll should be,” Merle snorted, wrapping his fingers through holes in the mesh wire door of our cage. “That truck through the fence thing? That’s just him ringing the doorbell.”

I cringed slightly, knowing my part in that making the shadow of guilt begin to crawl up my throat.

“We might have some thick walls to hide behind, but he’s got the guns and he’s got the numbers,” Merle continued.

It was true and I nodded my agreement, mind racing with theories. “If he was smart,” I chimed in, leaning against the wire wall beside Merle. “All he’d have to do was take the high ground. Starve us out.”

The likelihood he’d think to wait us out was low to say the least, but it was worth saying. He’d never had much patience but guns and would-be soldiers? He certainly had those aplenty.

And we’d been the ones to give them to him.

“Hell,” Merle snorted after a moment of tense silence had settled. “Ya’ll should just be glad _she’s_ here with me.” He jerked his head at me. “If he’d had her too, you’d all already be dead.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. Had he really needed to say that? Now everyone was looking at me.

“Can we put him in the other cellblock?” Maggie asked tautly.

“No,” Daryl answered. “He’s got a point.”

Maggie didn’t like that response – not that I really blamed her. She whirled around to face us, pointing a finger in our direction with a fierce scowl. “This is all you! You started this!”

From above her, at the beginning of the stairs, a thin blonde girl shouted, “What difference does it make whose fault it is?”

I concurred. We were all stuck in the same prison now, both literally and figuratively.

“What should we do?” asked the dainty woman with short, silver hair. Her voice was at odds with her appearance, stronger and clearer than her timid appearance claimed she was.

“I said we should leave,” the one-legged man sitting on the bottom of the staircase said harshly. “Now Axel’s dead. We can’t just sit here.”

Rick lifted a hand to rub his jaw before turning, pulling open the gate separating the hall and the main room and striding out toward the exit. The old man, clambering up onto his one good foot, a pair of old metal crutches tucked beneath his arms, began to follow him.

“Get back here!” he yelled, making half of us jump in surprise at the harshness of his voice.

After a brief moment of stunned silence, the young, dark-haired boy trailed after them, leaving six-and-a-half of the group behind.

I say six-and-a-half, you see, because, a little box by the edge of the staircase, I had learnt barely a few moments ago, contained a baby. An actual, tiny, newborn baby. It had given me such a shock when I’d heard the little one cooing in the middle of the night that I’d literally been unable to fall asleep. The young blonde girl, whose name I was pretty sure started with a “B”, had carried her down from the second story, bouncing her along in an attempt to calm her back down into a soft sleep. I’d been able to see her little face poking out from the edge of her pale pink blanket in the dim moonlight. She was a cute thing, content and pink-cheeked. I can’t believe Daryl hadn’t mentioned her. Had I known, I might have fought harder to go back with them when they had all been arguing by the roadside. We had children in Woodbury, that was true, and the idea that they could potentially get caught in the crossfire between Rick and the Governor made my heart ache. The youngest was four, a tiny little thing named Gretta. Gretta could run. A newborn baby could not.

Everyone seemed confused as to what to do next. Their aimless shuffling about reminded me of the biters.

I could hear the distant sound of Rick’s voice filtering in through the upper windows and spent a few moments attempting to tune into it, but it was just out of my range. The warmth of the mid-day sun upon the brick walls began to filter into the small, enclosed room. I loved the heat, thrived in it. But something about being stuck inside a cage, watching the heat waves distorting the concrete by feet made me begin to feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t claustrophobic in the least, but I wasn’t exactly made for captivity, either.

My leather jacket was beginning to choke me.

I lifted up my hands to undo the zip, pulling the sleeves free from my heavily tattooed arms and tossing it against the wall. It struck the concrete with a somewhat amusing sound before falling atop the bench that ran along the wall and flopping over it, onto the floor. The air caressed the bare skin left exposed by my black tank. I rolled my shoulder, my neck, and lifted my arms up to stretch.

God, I needed to get out of this cage.

As I lowered my arms, twisting back around to find Merle sneering at me, I felt the sensation of prying eyes off to my right. Before I could strike Merle across the back of the head, my attention was turned, and I caught Daryl’s eye mere seconds before he had a chance to jerkily avert his gaze. The red tint to his cheeks and the way he shuffled uncomfortably in his place, sitting upon one of the steps in the centre of the hall of cells, made me chuckle slightly under my breath.

Until I caught a second eye.

The timid-looking woman with grey hair had been partway through a hushed conversation with the younger Dixon, only to pause mid-word when she caught his gaze slipping elsewhere. She had followed his line of sight and was now surveying me from top to bottom with her eyes narrowed, more in thought than in suspicion. In fact, it was almost calculating.

I turned away.

#

We were freed a short time later by the old man.

He didn’t speak to us, merely pulled a set of keys from his belt loop once he’d returned and unlocked the door before turning and hobbling back over to the row of cells, lowering himself down on one of the steps once again. The door between the main room and the cells was pushed closed behind him by Maggie.

So, we were free of one cage, only to be locked into another.

Whatever. It was their place and I had said I’d respect whatever means they felt they needed to take to be safe.

Unfortunately, this had given Merle quite a lot of room to make a nuisance of himself. He’d begun rummaging through their belongings almost immediately. I followed along behind him, more-so to keep him from doing anything _too _out of order, but also out of my own sense of curiosity.

They didn’t have much. Some old cans, a pot or two, and a handful of old milk cartons for water. A small collection of baby formula was tucked away inside one of the cupboards beneath the metallic shelving unit. My heart constricted at the sight of it. How long would that last them? Would they be able to prepare it on the road if they were forced to leave?

I shook my head to knock that train of thought off its tracks.

“You think they’ll make it?” Merle asked after a long stretch of silence. He was partway through trying to bend a piece of broken metal from the side of the staircase at the back of the room.

“Don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I think they’ve gotten this far for a reason.”

Merle’s snort morphed into a grunt as he tried to pull at the sharp rod of metal to no avail. It was still partially welded onto the side of the step. With a sigh, I stepped forward and shooed him away. He gave me an agitated look before shuffling dejectedly to the side and allowing me to take his place.

“How do you know it ain’t just luck?” Merle responded, watching with his arms crossed over his chest as I reached out to grab the shard of metal. 

“Because,” I began, turning to look at him as I pulled the rod downwards, snapping it from its welding with a satisfying sound. “I saw this prison before they got here. It was overrun. They cleared it out.”

Merle’s face was a mixture of frustration and exasperation as I handed him the snapped piece of metal, but he took it with a shake of his head. I knew it irritated him that my strength surpassed his. It played on his male ego so much that he constantly tried to outdo me whenever he was given the opportunity. One time, he’d even challenged me to an arm wrestle.

I’d almost broken his arm.

“Then why’re they shittin’ their pants about that damn field?” Merle asked, grabbing the roll of duct-tape from the top of the shelving unit beside us and making his way back toward the cell we’d been freed from. “You and I would have a damn party out there.”

“You might, maybe,” I responded, following behind him with a grin. “I’d be too busy constantly saving your ass while you frolicked around, wondering why it was so damn easy.”

Merle paused mid-step to turn and look at me, brows furrowed. “Frolicked? Do I look like a damn fairy-boy to you?”

I blinked once at his choice of words, trying to hide my ironic grin before shaking my head once and stepping past him. Now that the cage door was open, the claustrophobic feeling I’d had was gone as I sat atop the concrete bench, pushing myself up into the corner where the wire wall met brick.

Merle took a seat next to me, putting his leg up and resting the metallic contraption on his forearm against his thigh. He put the piece of metal in his mouth – gross – as he began to line the metal in duct-tape, preparing to secure the sharp point where his hand used to be.

I was about to open my mouth to make a smartass comment when the door to the cellblock slammed open. Rick came waltzing back in, barely giving us a side-ways glance as he made his way back to the hall of cells where his people were still milling about.

He reached into the cell closest to the opened gate and pulled out a hunting rifle, handing it to Maggie. “Take watch,” he ordered. “Eyes open. Head down.”

She gave him a nod and left the building without question.

Rick continued toward the others, a hand on his hip as he announced, “Fields filled with walkers. I didn’t see any snipers out there, but we’ll keep Maggie on watch.”

Daryl made his way down from the second story mezzanine. “I’ll get up in the guard tower. Take out half these walkers, give these guys a chance to fix the fence.”

Michonne, who had been given much more leeway than either Merle or I, stood by the stair railing with her hands in the pockets of her tight jeans. “We could use some of the cars to put the bus in place.”

The old man, whose name I’d learnt from listening in was Hershel, stepped up beside Rick. “We can’t access the field without burning through our bullets.”

“So, we’re trapped here?” Glenn asked angrily.

I glanced sideways at Merle, wondering if their hushed voices were reaching his plainly human ears, but he was too invested in building his new toy to give me the slightest of hints one way or the other. Part of me was tempted to tell them to just let Merle and I out there. After all, the only one of them that actually seemed to care about our wellbeing was Daryl – and I say “our” loosely, considering the younger Dixon hadn’t exactly made his opinion of me quite clear. It made sense for them to send us, the disposable ones, out into that field to clear as many biters as we could before getting devoured. Not that we would, but from their point of view, it was a logical conclusion to draw.

I turned my head slightly to the side, tuning back into the conversation whilst also keeping half an eye on Merle and the pointy thing in his hand.

“There’s barely any food or ammo,” Glenn continued, growing more and more agitated as his words went on.

Daryl shrugged. “Been here before. We’ll be alright.”

“That was when it was just us!” Glenn’s voice was rising in volume. “Before there were snakes in the nest!”

Daryl’s head twisted to look at him, eyes narrowed in a near feral glare. “Man, we gotta go through this again?” he asked with a growl. “Merle and Jacques are stayin’. They’re with us now.” With a curled lip snarl, he turned away from Glenn and began to climb the staircase two steps at a time. “Get used to it. All ya’ll.”

Glenn watched him go for a moment before stepping up closer to Rick, voice low, no more than a hiss. “Seriously, Rick. I don’t think Merle living here is really gonna fly.”

“I can’t kick him out,” Rick responded, just as aggressively.

“I wouldn’t ask you to live with Shane after he tried to kill _you_,” Glenn spat.

That seemed to make Rick instantly uncomfortable. I watched him shuffle from foot to foot as he tried to process the best way to respond, though the old man, who had stepped up beside Glenn, beat him to it.

“Merle has military experience,” Hershel said softly. “And the girl’s proven herself to be capable.”

Glenn turned to look at him with a scowl.

“He may be erratic, and she may be unpredictable, but I wouldn’t underestimate their sense of loyalty. Merle, to his brother, and hers, to him.”

Seemingly ignoring Hershel’s wise words, Glenn turned back to look at Rick, his body language making it look as if he were about ready to enter into a fever. “What if we solve both problems at once?” he asked intensely. “Deliver Merle to the Governor. Bargaining chip. Give him his traitor, maybe declare a truce.”

I had to hold back a snort. If, after everything he’d witnessed the other night, he truly believed the Governor would honour any sort of agreement made between the Prison and Woodbury, he was a fool. This was more than just a territory dispute now. It was personal to him. He wouldn’t accept any half measures.

“You think the girl would just accept that?” Rick was asking, though his voice was low enough that I could only barely hear it over the sounds of Hershel’s crutches against the floor.

The old man was making his way over to us.

“We’d have to take her, too,” Rick hissed. “You think she deserves that?”

Glenn didn’t respond right away, giving Rick enough time to press it further, though whatever he said was lost as Hershel’s form took up the doorway to our cell.

My body tensed slightly without my provocation.

Merle glanced up, the old man’s proximity breaking through his focus. He’d made pretty good progress on the arm, having almost solidified the sharp metal at the tip of his stub with duct-tape.

“You’re the farmer,” Merle said in way of greeting, looking the old man up and down. “Hershel.”

Hershel smiled slightly and stepped further into the cell, lowering himself down onto the concrete bench to my left with a grunt. “And you’re the black sheep,” he responded without judgement. “Merle.”

He turned his attention to me, the kind eyes and soft smile he gave enabling my tensed muscles to relax and loosen. It had been a long time since I’d been treated with unmotivated kindness. I knew that was partially my own fault, due to my somewhat aggressive personality, but it was still nice to see a pure, good natured kindness in a stranger’s eyes when he looked upon me, instead of the judgemental, perverted, or scornful looks I often received.

“You’re… Jack, was it?” the old man asked politely.

“Jacques,” I answered, inflecting the French pronunciation with a grin. “Synnove le Jacques.”

Hershel’s smile widened beneath his unruly white beard. “That’s a pretty name. Interesting.”

I breathed out a small chuckle. “My, uh, Mother. She had a pretty strong ancestry back to the Vikings – hence the Synnove. And my… Her husband, he was from a French family. So… le Jacques.”

Speaking of my adoptive parents had always been a sensitive subject for me. It made me uncomfortable at the best of times and miserable at the worst.

Hershel nodded along. If he noticed the way I somewhat stumbled over the mention of my adoptive father, he didn’t let on. “And where are you from?” he asked, though it sounded as if he already knew the answer.

It wasn’t hard to guess, after all. My accent was still quite strong, even after I’d spent the last few years surrounded by Americans. “Australia,” I answered, anyway, with a small, sad smile.

“Your parents, too?”

“Yeah. They were.”

Hershel’s smile dropped slightly. “I take it they are no longer with us?”

“Haven’t been for more than a decade,” I answered simply.

He gave me that soft, apologetic look most folks gave when you informed them that your parents had died when you were young. “I’m sorry to hear.”

My shoulders rose in a half-hearted shrug and I averted my gaze. Even after all these years, it was still difficult for me to talk about my adoptive parents. Speaking about my biological ones wasn’t much better, either. The subject was a sore spot and Merle knew me well enough to push the old man into a different conversation.

“How’d you lose it?” he asked, jerking his head toward Hershel’s missing leg.

The old man’s smile returned slightly, though it was somewhat sad as he looked down at the stub below his knee. “I was bit.”

“Bit?” Merle echoed, blinking once in surprise. “Hack it off yourself?”

I felt myself cringing at the thought.

“No,” Hershel answered, leaning back against the metal wall behind him. “Rick did.”

“Awfully kind of him,” Merle said with a condescending snort.

I gave him a side-eye that he promptly ignored.

Hershel didn’t seem bothered by it, though. “He saved my life,” he said with a soft, patient tone.

My respect for him grew. Being patient whilst holding a conversation with Merle was akin to walking on water in my book.

Merle snorted at Hershel’s response, but the old man merely leant forward and looked at him.

“He gave me more time with my girls,” he stated simply. “Gave the both of you more time with each other, and you with your brother.” He leant back again. “Can’t put a price on that.”

“Can’t put a price on anything, anymore,” Merle muttered to himself as he averted his gaze from the old man and stared down at the haphazardly designed metal on his forearm.

I watched him silently for a moment with a frown whilst Hershel reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. The sounds of fabric against skin was oddly stark in the settling silence. Glancing back toward the old man, I watched him pull a small, pocket-sized black book from the inside of his jacket lining and bring it to rest upon in his lap.

I’d never been a religious person – how could I and still do what I do? – but I knew a bible when I saw one.

“I found this in one of the cells,” Hershel said softly to neither of us in particular. “Lost more than the Good Book there for a while. Lost my way.” He took a long, steadying breath before using his forefinger to pull the book open, looking down at the small text with a small, content smile on his lips. “_And if your right hand offends you, cut it off, cast it from you, for it is profitable that one of your members should perish_ –“

“– _And not that thy whole body should be cast into hell_,” Merle finished for the man, looking up at him with a smug smirk. “Matthew 5:29 and 30.”

Hershel looked a little taken aback by Merle’s reciting and I found myself chuckling under my breath.

That man was, indeed, full of surprises.

“Woodbury had a damn fine library,” he explained, his tone much lighter than it had been before. “One of the only things I miss about it.”

“Hot showers,” I remarked, looking to the ceiling with a dreamy look on my face.

Merle clicked his tongue. “Oh, hell yeah.”

“Fresh apples. Oh, and how could we forget, Roger’s moonshine?”

Merle let out a chuckle at that. “That was some damn fine mix.”

We grinned at one another silently for a moment before I looked up at Hershel and saw the slight frown pulling down his bushy white brows. The disapproval in his eyes almost made me feel guilty. I understood, of course. Reminiscing about a life we’d lost wouldn’t serve anyone.

“Too bad about that megalomaniac, though, huh?” I added with a light-hearted shrug. “Those bastards ruin everything.”

The wide grin on Merle’s face faded much quicker than I would have liked as he turned and gave me a perplexed look of contemplation. Hershel and I both waited silently, watching the wheels in his head turn as his frown deepened.

“He’ll be gunning for you,” Merle said to me after a moment. “You know that, don’t you? He’s gotta take out the biggest threat first.”

I met his gaze evenly. “I’d say he’d know better than to try, but these days he has more ego than sense.”

It was a possibility I’d known to expect. The Governor knew too much about me. He knew of my previous profession; knew of the things I was capable of. He’d witnessed it himself, both outside the gates and within, during Game Night. Since we had begun the admittedly somewhat twisted weekly tradition, I’d remained undefeated. I was quick, strong, and trained to kill. At the beginning, my lethality had unnerved Philip, but the _Governor_ had seen the advantages of having someone like me by his side. Saw it as his greatest weapon.

Now, I was his greatest concern.

He knew, if I were so inclined, I could get into Woodbury undetected and move through the town like a ghost in the shadows. He knew I could easily scale the side of the town hall and reach his window. And he knew, better than almost anyone, that I could certainly find a new home for a knife in the base of his throat.

It stood to reason that he would plan to eliminate me from the board as soon as possible. After all, I’d been the one that taught him to always target the biggest threat first.

“I’ll deal with what comes,” I stated lightly, giving Merle what I hoped was a confident smile. “Always do.”

Merle nodded, giving me a lingering look that almost seemed like concern before turning back to Hershel. “I’ll be next,” he guessed. “Michonne, my brother. Then your girls. Glenn, Carl, the baby, whoever the hell else is left. He’ll save Rick for last, so he can watch his family and friends die ugly. That’s the kind of man you’re dealing with.”

I nodded along with a deep sigh, feeling the warmth of shame begin to build in the pit of my stomach. It disturbed me more than words could express that I had served under the Governor’s rule for as long as I had, as if I’d been too comfortable in my little slice of his world to wake up and see what he had really become. As if, suddenly, I’d blinked and the man standing before me was no longer the soft-hearted Phil I’d known since the beginning.

When had he become “the Governor” to me? At what point had I even stopped calling him by his name? I should have stopped myself then. I should have known better. I’d been _trained_ to know better. When had I lost my damn sight?

It was the not knowing that irritated me the most. There was a moment, somewhere in time, that I had actively chosen to ignore the red flags in favour of my own safety and comfort.

The army men by the roadside should have been the moment I left. When he ordered us to gun them down, and we’d obeyed with little thought. Sure, when I’d noticed one of them had survived, partially hidden behind their truck, I’d done my best to save him – told him to run and tried to distract the Governor so he wouldn’t notice. But he had. And the moment he spotted him, he turned and lifted his hand, shooting the boy in the back. There had been no emotion on his face, no hesitation. A simple and smooth execution.

I’d seen it, then. As if waking from a trance. Seen that something about this man before me was… corrupted.

I remembered feeling a dull sense of regret. Guilt for being the one that had taught him to shoot, that had enabled his violent streak purely for my own benefit. That was when I should have left. But I’d somehow convinced myself that it was a one-off happenstance, that no one else other than Martinez even remotely took my concerns seriously, so surely it was all in my head, right?

But since that day, I had been unable to look at him the same. Every move he made, every word he spoke, I began to analyse. And then, that night with Glenn and Maggie…

If I had left that day by the roadside, Maggie never would have had to live through that. And I hated myself for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Remember, comments and feedback are not only accepted, they are welcomed with open arms!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> ((Additionally, I do have this story on Tumblr, too. Just look up "jamesbucksiclebarnes" and you should find me!))
> 
> Thanks for not murdering me on sight,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	4. She Who Holds the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prison receives an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'd-diddy-day friends! Thank you once again for tuning in to the Shit-Show-Hour.  
I hope you enjoy this new chapter! It was a fun one to write! :)

Everything settled into an odd kind of quiet after that.

Hershel had retreated back behind the metal gate, disappearing into one of the cells with the young blonde I figured was his daughter and the box-baby. At first, Merle had made a disrespectful comment, remarking on the blonde’s idiocy for bringing a baby into a world like this. I’d smacked him across the back of his balding head and informed him that; “One, that baby is very obviously not hers, moron. And two, even if it was, do you really think she would have had much of a choice elsewise? Or that she got pregnant all on her own? Do you know how biology works?”

He opened his mouth to make what I knew was going to be a dirty comment, but I lifted my hand to cut him off with a simply, “Don’t answer that.”

Hours passed.

None of the conversations going on around us were of any particular interest, though I had learnt a few titbits of information from eavesdropping. Mostly, it was names. For instance, I now knew that the timid-looking, silver haired woman was named Carol and the young boy that couldn’t have been older than twelve was named Carl. He was Rick’s son.

Merle and I had still been sitting on the uncomfortable bench within the cell, struggling to properly secure that stupid piece of metal, when Michonne came in. Wordlessly and without even glancing in our direction, she walked to the centre of the room and lowered herself down onto the concrete floor. For a moment, my expression contorted into a confused frown as I wondered what the hell she was doing, but the moment she began to tense her core and lift her knees toward her face, the understanding dawned.

Merle, the perverted asshole, stood from the bench and slowly walked out and into the main room. His eyes remained on her as he lowered himself down onto the edge of one of the circular metal tables, lifting a foot to rest atop the seat beneath it. With the duct-tape still in my hand, I followed him and took a seat on the tabletop beside him, snatching his handless arm back so I could continue fixing the mess he’d made of it.

“Smart to stay fit,” Merle remarked after a silent moment as he leered down at her. “Don’t leave out the cardio.”

I let the duct-tape fall into my lap so that I’d have a spare hand to wack him over the head with.

He flinched with a curse before turning to give me an irritated glare. “Hey! I didn’t mean nothin’ by it!”

“Bullshit,” I snorted.

Silence settled again, filled only by Michonne’s soft grunts as she pulled her knees to her chest and slowly extended them out again. Her control was excellent. She had a strong core, for a human.

“Hey, you know,” Merle began with a slight grin. “If we’re gonna live under the same roof, we should clear the air. This whole hunting you down thing? That was just business. You understand? Carrying out orders. Right, Jacques?”

I glanced at him and then back at Michonne, who gave me a knowing look before returning her focus to her body. Merle still didn’t know I’d let her go that day.

“Like the Gestapo,” she remarked after a brief moment of consideration.

Merle’s grin widened while I cringed. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Was that really what we were? A secret police force dedicated to wiping out the enemies of a regime overseen by a cruel, arrogant dictator – _Oh, yeah. Okay. I see it now._

Merle’s grin faded slowly as he turned to look at my troubled expression. “The two of us have done a lot of things we ain’t proud of,” he said. “Both before and after, right, Jacques?”

I gave a solemn nod.

“Anyway. Hope we can get past it.” Merle slowly rose to his feet, pulling his partially finished arm from my lap. “Let bygones be bygones.”

He began to walk across the room, as if intended to return to the cell. I kept him in my sights briefly before glancing down at Michonne to see her watching him with a suspicious gaze. She felt my eyes on her and turned her head slightly to turn the look on me. The contempt and suspicion faded, but only slightly. I’d earned some respect by letting her go that day. But only _some_.

I heard the commotion barely a few moments before Rick burst into the room. He was carrying guns, three of them, and tossed one to Merle, Michonne, and I in quick succession. Daryl appeared in the door behind him, crossbow in hand.

“We got company,” Rick remarked, gesturing for us to follow.

Carol picked up the rifle resting against the edge of the makeshift bench. She had been partway through preparing a bottle for the baby and left the tin of formula abandoned in order to follow behind her leader.

Merle and I shared a glance before following behind Rick as he spun on his heel and ran out the door. I adjusted my hold on the rifle, gripping it in the professional manner I’d become accustomed to, and stuck to Merle’s side as I usually did. We ran down the hall and out into the fenced path, eyes scanning the tree line for movement as we went.

My keen eye could find nothing suspicious, though once I was through the small gate and into the yard, I ducked behind a nearby car and did a more thorough scan. Beside me, Merle mimicked my actions. We both called out “clear” at the same time.

It was then that I spotted her. Andrea, holding one of the grabbers from Woodbury, was walking up the path through the infested field, a biter in tow.

Huh. Interesting development.

Rick kept his rifle held tight as he scanned the horizon once again, calling out to Andrea, “Are you alone?”

Andrea, exhausted, just asked him to open the gate.

“Are you alone?” Rick repeated, louder and more authoritative this time.

I stepped out from around the car and stood by the fence, keeping the gun raised, scope fixed on the tree line. There was no one with her, of that I was almost certain. The tree line was bare of living souls.

“Rick!” Andrea screeched as a couple of biters began to stumble closer to her. “Open it!”

He waited a fraction of a second before tossing the keys to Daryl, who had come to a stop by the edge of the gate.

Daryl caught them effortlessly, slinging his crossbow onto his back and unlocking the chain in one fluid motion. He and Merle pulled it open and Andrea slid through, dropping the grabber and leaving the biter in the field behind her.

Rick pointed the rifle at her.

I followed suit while Merle and Daryl returned their scopes to the distant line of trees beyond the prison fence.

“Hands up!” Rick yelled, which startled Andrea into looking at him. “Turn around!”

“What? Rick!”

Rick reached out and grabbed her upper arm, forcibly turning her and pushing her up against the wire fence to pat her down. He pulled a gun from the waistband of her jeans just as a biter came up on the other side of the fence, reaching for them both.

She screamed and stumbled back but Rick caught her by the sleeve and forced her down onto her knees.

“Get down, on the floor!” he yelled, stripping her of the satchel hanging from her shoulder. “I asked if you were alone.”

Andrea watched him step away from her, blonde hair a mess, eyes wide in shock. “I am,” she answered, though her voice was a wisp of itself, unsure and confused.

Rick tossed me her bag without a word. If I hadn’t had reflexes that surpassed the scope of normality, I probably would have dropped both it and the rifle. Considering the safety was still off, that likely wouldn’t have ended well for anyone. Despite that, of course, I did catch it, allowing the rifle to fall into a loose, one-handed grip. I was comfortable enough that I needn’t point the thing at her any longer.

With a pursed frown, I glanced over to Merle, where he knelt a few inches to my right, eye trained down the barrel of his rifle. When he felt my gaze, he looked up, cocking a questioning brow. I nodded my head, confident she was, indeed, alone. He nodded back.

Andrea remained kneeling upon the hard asphalt as Rick handed Daryl her gun and dealt with the biter by the fence with the knife he kept latched to his belt.

He stepped back over to her and reached down to grab her upper arm once again, pulling her to her feet with a growl that was neither entirely friendly nor unfriendly. “Welcome back.”

#

Rick all but marched her into the main room, waiting until they’d reached the bottom of the four steps in front of the door before he let her go, stepping further into the room without turning to face her.

Everyone piled in, leaving Merle and I last to close the metallic door behind us. The two of us remained standing atop the platform, looking down at Andrea as she and Carol shared a tight embrace.

When she pulled away, she spoke a series of names I didn’t recognise that was met with saddened silence. Lori. T-Dog. The last one, Shane, was met with a few awkward glances between the group. I guessed it was a sensitive subject.

Lori, I knew, was the name of the baby’s mother. Hershel informed Andrea of her passing with a sorrowful frown, adding that the baby was a healthy little girl to lighten the blow.

Andrea looked to the small boy, Carl, her eyes wet with unshed tears as she apologised. The kid looked back at her with thinly veiled suspicion and not much else.

After getting nothing from him, Andrea turned back to look at Rick. “Rick, my God…”

Rick averted his gaze, turning partially away from the group and waving his hand dismissively. Lori must have been Carl’s mother, too. Which meant she had been Rick’s partner. I guessed the passing of his wife was still too close to home, too fresh for him to speak on. Andrea sensed the same thing and let the subject drop.

“I – You all live here?” she asked, looking around, aghast.

“Here and the cellblock,” Glenn answered from behind her.

She turned to glance at him before pointing towards the barred door that led to the hall of cells. “There?” she asked, taking a few steps towards it. “Can I go in?”

Rick side-stepped into her path. “I won’t allow that.”

Andrea looked up at him in shock. “I’m not the enemy, Rick.”

It sounded as if she were both saddened and surprised that she even needed to make that clarification. I held back a scoff, biting my lower lip to keep from saying anything. Had she honestly expected to just waltz back in here? She knew Merle and I were here, had likely guessed Michonne was, too. Surely, she would have assumed we’d had Rick’s ear, at least enough to tell him of her relationship with the Governor. What had she thought would happen?

“We had that field and courtyard before your boyfriend tore down the fence with a truck and shot us up,” Rick remarked, lifting a hand to gesture towards the door.

“He said you shot first,” Andrea breathed, sounding confused.

Again, I had to bite my tongue. He’d become a good liar; I’d give him that. Something I certainly hadn’t taught him.

“Well, he’s lying,” Rick retorted with a deadpan expression.

“He killed an inmate who survived in here,” Hershel stated, drawing Andrea’s attention.

“We liked him,” Daryl put in softly from where he sat, leaning with his forearm against his crossed leg atop one of the metal tables. “He was one of us.”

Andrea shook her head, as if trying to clear the fog of shock from her brain. “I didn’t know anything about that.” She took a deep breath and looked back to Rick. “As soon as I found out, I came. I didn’t even know you were in Woodbury until the shoot-out!”

Glenn stepped forward. “That was days ago.”

Andrea looked at him, mouth open as she continued to shake her head, unsure of what to say. “I told you,” she settled on, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I came as soon as I could.”

Behind her, Michonne moved to the side, leaning up against the mesh wall of the cell Merle and I had been banished to earlier. Andrea whirled on her, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed.

“What have you told them?” she asked accusingly.

“Nothing,” Michonne answered, quick and simple.

Andrea continued to turn in a circle, looking at all of us in turn with an outright incredulous look on her face. “I don’t get it,” she breathed. “I left Atlanta with you people and now I’m the odd man out?”

Why was that so hard for her to believe? There had been more than enough time for change since she’d left them. People had died. People had adapted to the harsh world outside the walls and fences any way they could. The change in them had been inevitable.

Glenn moved towards her again, that burning fire in his gaze now fixed on Andrea. “He almost killed Michonne,” he argued, obviously referring to the Governor. “And he would have killed us!”

“With their fingers on the trigger!” Andrea yelled, pointing up the stairs to where Merle and I stood. “Aren’t they the ones that kidnapped you? Beat you?”

Glenn’s gaze dropped to the floor.

Merle and I shared a look. I could see he was at least slightly guilty for that.

Andrea let the echo of her raised voice fade before taking a deep, calming breath and continuing with a softer tone. “Look, I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done, but I am trying to bring us together. We have to work this out.”

I couldn’t hold back my snort at that one.

Andrea whirled on me and narrowed her eyes. “You have something you want to say, say it. I’m not like everyone else from Woodbury. I’m not scared of you.”

“There’s no working this one out,” I stated simply. “Don’t you see that?”

“All I see is a group of people I thought I knew, giving up on peace in favour of violence.” She looked around the room once again, her mouth pulling down tightly at the corners. “We can settle this.”

“No,” Rick spat. “We’re gonna kill him. I don’t know how, or when, but we will.”

She looked at Rick, desperate and pleading. “There’s room at Woodbury for all of us!”

“You know better than that,” I remarked, putting the base of my gun down to the concrete floor and using it as a leaning post. “Do you honestly believe he’s willing to negotiate? Did he tell you that?”

She shook her head.

“Then why?” I asked, tilting my head to regard her. “Why are you here? Is it because he’s preparing for war? Because you’ve seen the things he’s willing to do to win yet can’t quite convince yourself that it’s too far?”

Her eyes narrowed further, the corner of her upper lip twitching in anger. I’d hit something, there. Whether she would admit it yet or not, she knew I’d hit something.

“What’s he doing, huh? Arming the kids?” I took a step down, eyes fixed on her. “Shoving M16’s into the hands of the elderly?”

She didn’t answer, but I could tell by the way her gaze dropped to the floor for a fraction of a second that I was right. That was exactly what he was doing.

I moved down another stair and she took a partial step back, seemingly more out of instinct than purpose. “And let me guess… He’s convinced the people that we’re the bad guys. That Rick and these people here were the ones that started this fight. Am I right?”

After a deep breath, she seemed to force herself to meet my gaze, blue eyes blazing. “You don’t know him. Not like I do.”

I let out a bark of laughter. So did Merle.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I mused. “I hate to break it to you, but just because you know what the guys dick taste like don’t mean you know him better than anyone else.”

She let out a disgusted gasp, mouth hanging open in shock. “Excuse me, I –“

“He will not let this go,” I cut in, sobering. I’d reached the floor now and was close enough to reach out and grab her had I wanted to. She was shorter than me by a decent margin, almost half a foot, and I looked down my nose at her with an intense gaze. “Do you understand? He will never allow Here and There to exist simultaneously and he sure as hell won’t let Michonne live after what she did to him.” I halted a second and partially turned to look at Michonne, giving her an appraising nod. “Good work on that, by the way.”

Without giving anyone else the chance to interject, I looked back to Andrea and continued my slow approach. “He’ll hunt Merle down because he’s convinced himself of his own story, that he was betrayed by the both of us, and he will come for me, not only because of that, but because he not be able to sleep at night, knowing that I could be hidden in every shadow. I’ve been with him since this whole thing started. I was by his side when he lost his wife, his daughter. I taught him things, showed him what he was capable of and watched him decay into what he is today.”

Each step I took towards her was met with a shuffle backwards until she stood with her backside against the shelves by the wall opposite the doorway, looking up at me with wide eyes. So much for not being afraid of me.

I stopped, allowing my expression to soften slightly. “Look, I’ll admit I stood by him far longer than I should have, too. Ignored or outright convinced myself that the signs I was seeing weren’t really there. I will be _endlessly_ sorry for that. But now? _This_ is where I’m standing. With them, finally doing the right fucking thing. Can you say the same?”

Everyone fell utterly silent. Andrea looked up at me with those wide, bright blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her mouth was twitching open and closed, her hands were shaking, while she leant partially backwards, into the shelving unit purely to get as far from me as she could. Her elbow, resting against the top of one of the shelfs, was the only thing keeping her steady.

I took my gaze from her in order to glance around at the group of people in the room with me. They were all looking at me with varying looks of surprise or unease. Rick had even begun raising his rifle toward me, as if he’d expected me to tear out her throat with my teeth or something equally ridiculous.

Daryl was the only one watching passively, expression neutral, emotion betrayed only by his eyes as they fixed on me with a subtle, if a little uneased, sense of respect.

Merle was just grinning that goofy grin he always did whenever I pulled the Alpha Female card.

Lifting my hands in a surrendering gesture, I began to back away from the poor woman. “Think on it,” I said plainly before turning my back and walking back up to where Merle stood.

The room remained silent for a moment as Andrea pushed herself off the shelf and straightened, letting out a shaky breath. I hadn’t really intended on intimidating her like that. I’d just wanted her to understand, to see the truth before she got herself in trouble. To know that she was smarter than this, smarter than whatever spell he’d put on her.

After taking a moment to calm herself, Andrea looked back to Rick. “The people of Woodbury are terrified. Whether or not Philip’s spun some kind of story, they think you’re killers. They’re training to attack.”

Daryl scoffed. “I’ll tell you what,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “Next time you see _Philip_, you tell him I’m gonna take his other eye.”

I couldn’t stop the grin that formed on my face at that.

“We’ve taken too much shit for too long,” Glenn pressed. “He wants a war? He’s got one.”

Andrea looked at him with disappointment in her eyes before turning to look back at Rick, approaching him with her hands raised. Almost like she was pleading. “Rick. If you don’t sit down and at least try to work this out, I don’t know what’s going to happen. He has a whole town.” She sighed and looked at all of them in turn, opening her arms to gesture at them as a whole. “Look at you. You’ve lost so much already… You can’t stand alone anymore.”

Rick jerked into action, stepping across her side so he was standing in front of her, looking down with a near crazed look in his eye. “You want to make this right? Get us inside.”

She was shaking her head before he’d even finished. “No.”

“Then we have nothing to talk about,” he spat and began walking back towards the cellblock.

Andrea watched him with her mouth agape. “There are innocent people!”

My lips stretched into a hard line and I looked to the floor. She was right. The majority of the people the Governor would send for us would be innocent, acting only out of a misguided sense of self-preservation. People I knew. People I cared for. Some of them had children, children that may even be fighting alongside them.

Jesus. Could I really do this?

The sound of the cellblock door slamming shut snapped me out of my reverie. Rick had left the room without another word, leaving the rest of us to decide what to do with Andrea from then on. Michonne asked to speak with her outside and we let them without argument.

I slowly lowered myself down onto the top stair, letting the rifle sit across my knees as I watched Andrea and Michonne exit the room. Everyone remained silent for a while after they’d left, looking amongst one another, hoping one of them would come up with some miracle answer to their predicament.

As quiet as it was, I could hear both Michonne and Andrea’s voices flowing in from the outside. Andrea was trying to convince Michonne that she wasn’t blinded by the Governor’s hold on her, and Michonne was none-too-gently telling her that that was complete bullshit.

I began to smile to myself, only for it to vanish a moment later with the sound of Michonne admitting, “He sent Jacques and Merle to kill me.”

Without meaning to, I blanched and Merle turned to me with a questioning look. I waved him away before he could open his mouth, straining to listen to the rest of the conversation.

“Would have sent them for you, too, if you’d come with me,” Michonne continued. “The only reason I’m standing here is because Jacques opened her eyes and saw the Governor for what he truly is. Maybe you should take her advice.”

Their arguing voices began to distort, mingling in with the conversations originating from within the cellblock. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite single out their words, so I let out a sigh and gave up after a few moments.

It took a while, but eventually, Rick returned. He asked Daryl to help him get one of the cars from the lot out back, suggesting Merle and I head outside to the gate to keep watch.

We did as we were told. When Andrea was ready to leave, Merle was the one who opened the gate for the car, whilst I made sure none of the biters on the other side of the fence made their way inside.

Rick and his people watched her driving off into the distance with sorrowful looks. They remained standing out in the courtyard until even the dust from her tires disappeared from the road.

That night, Merle and I were allowed into the cellblock. Everyone found a place to sit or lay, some on the beds behind the cell doors, others on the blankets strewn across the floor. A few candles were scattered around, barely casting enough light for a human to see more than a handful of feet in front of them. I could see the whole room as easily as if the roof had opened, casting the light of the full moon across concrete and metal.

Silence settled.

Rick carried the baby out from one of the cells on the second level, bouncing her calmly and gazing down at her with a soft look. That had to be the first time I’d ever seen him with something other than a scowl on his face.

Daryl stood by Hershel along the left-hand wall, leaning against one of the barred doors to the cells. Michonne was a few paces down, in the dark, staring off into space, no doubt trying to stop herself thinking too heavily about Andrea and the Governor. On the ground, leant up against the right wall sat Carol, the kid, and Beth. Her older sister and Glenn were sitting on the staircase in the centre of the room.

Merle and I stood by the open doorway to the cellblock itself, leaning against opposite sides of the doorframe.

It was then that Beth began to sing.

The sound echoed through the hallway, light and airy, an almost pure sound that brought light into the darkened room before us. I knew the song, was somewhat tempted to join in and harmonise with her, but I felt that her song was more… _for_ them, than it was just for the sake of music. Still, I let my eyes close and allowed myself to be taken away by the innocence and heart in her voice.

Rick carried the baby down the stairs and came to stand next to Hershel and Daryl. The sound of his footfalls brought me out of my daydream. I glanced over at them.

“Some reunion, huh?” Daryl asked, voice low enough that only Hershel and Rick would be able to hear.

You know. If I hadn’t been there.

“She’s in a jam,” Rick breathed in defence. “We all are.”

“Andrea’s persuasive,” Hershel whispered. “But this fella is armed to the teeth. Bent on destruction.” 

“So, what do you want to do?” Daryl asked, looking over Hershel to Rick.

Rick glanced down at the baby in his arms, using the hand not cradling her to pull the edge of her blanket from her face. “I’m going on a run,” he answered after a moment, looking back to the two men beside him.

“I’ll head out tomorrow,” Daryl said, nodding his agreement.

“No.” Rick shook his head. “You stay here. Keep an eye on your brother and the girl.”

I saw Daryl’s head beginning to twist in our direction and quickly avoided my gaze, looking back down to where Beth was singing her song.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Rick continued. “Really, I am. But if he causes a problem – if _either_ of them causes a problem, it’s on you.”

“She’s got more a hold of him than I ever have,” Daryl responded evenly. “If anythin’, she’ll be the one keeping him outta trouble.”

Rick made a wordless sound of agreement. “Maybe. But we know next to nothing about her. Andrea said the people of Woodbury were afraid of her – there’d be a reason for that. We just need to figure out what it is.”

I clenched my teeth, taking in a deep breath as I turned to see Merle watching me curiously. His eyes flicked over to his brother then back to me as he raised a questioning eyebrow.

I nodded, indicating that, yeah, I could hear them. “Tell you later,” I mouthed.

He nodded and returned his gaze to Beth.

“She was the closest to the Governor,” Hershel said softly. “His right-hand woman. Merle seemed pretty sure that he’s going to target her before the rest of us. Because he’s just as cautious of her as his people are.”

“Did he say why?” Rick asked.

“Well, she don’t exactly look like a damn receptionist,” Daryl remarked.

I felt the urge to cross my arms, to cover the sleeves and chest tattoo that seemingly indicated I was not a respectful member of society. Well, I wasn’t, but that didn’t mean it was nice to hear him assume that on how I looked and not on my actions.

Hershel made a soft sound. “It isn’t on us to judge her on her appearance alone. She speaks well and has been nothing but diplomatic and respectful with us since she got here.”

“You figure it out, if you can,” Rick said.

Daryl grunted his agreement.

“Regardless,” Hershel said. “You shouldn’t be going alone.”

“I’ll take Michonne.”

“Sure that’s a good idea?” Daryl asked.

I glanced back over at them, content that they were no longer speaking about me, and watched Rick glance over his shoulder at Michonne. She was still sitting alone behind the staircase, staring into space.

Rick looked back to Daryl and gave a single-shouldered shrug. “I’ll find out.” He paused, looking back down at the baby. “Carl, too. He’s ready.”

At that, I looked over at the kid and frowned. Was he ready to go out there? I felt my heart welling up with an old, half-forgotten sense of sorrow. He couldn’t be much older than I’d been, back then, when I’d begun my new life of blood and metal. It was sad to think he’d never have the simple joys of being a kid ever again. And that baby? She’d grow up in a world of death and decay. Her childhood would be non-existent.

That’s if she ever got the chance to grow up. If the Governor came for them, he’d kill anything, and anyone, caught in the crossfire. That baby, that kid… I couldn’t let anything happen to them. I wouldn’t. Not because of the monster I’d helped create.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget - I thrive off feedback. If you have anything you'd like to say, don't hesitate to leave a comment! Honestly, even just receiving kudos really boots my motivation to keep uploading this story! I'd love to hear anything and everything you have to say!
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Thanks for not murdering me on sight,  
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress x


	5. The Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl holds true to his promise to Rick and attempts to probe Synnove for information regarding her past at Woodbury and a message comes from the Governor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cracked 100 hits! Look at me go!   
Thank you all so much for deciding to click on this funky little tale of mine. I really hope you're enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it. Let me know how you're feeling about it!

Rick, Michonne and Carl left early that morning.

Merle and I were awoken in order to open the gate as they passed through in one of the cars from the courtyard. I was not a morning person, but I let the rude awakening slide by without complaint, taking my anger out on the two biters that tried to slink in through the open gate while Merle struggled to close it.

After we’d made sure it was secure, we began to make our way inside.

“You know they get us to do this ‘cause of that one damn sniper,” Merle remarked. “Can’t risk none of their people out here, but you and me? Free game.”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as we crossed the courtyard. “Stop complaining. We got four walls and a roof, all of which come refreshingly megalomaniac free.”

Merle grunted, not entirely committing to his agreement.

“Besides. You got your brother.” I reached out to pull open the wire gate, stepping into the frame and turning to face Merle before he could enter. “Don’t fuck that up. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Merle cocked a brow. “Lookin’ out for my brother now, are ya?”

“You need him more than he needs you,” I stated in response. “Don’t act like you don’t know that. All you have to do is not be an asshole every five minutes. Get me?”

He chewed on the inside of his lower hip, contorting his face into a scowl as he looked down at me. I didn’t budge until he nodded, tossing his hands up with a begrudging “Fine!”, moving past me once I’d stepped to the side and marching up the stairs to the entrance.

I followed behind, catching the door as he tried to slam it, full force, into my face. The suddenness of my catch made the door vibrate on its hinges, drawing the attention of those inside. By all logic, I shouldn’t have probably been able to catch that door as easily as I’d made it seem, with the amount of force that had been behind it. I just hoped none of them noticed.

Daryl, Hershel and Beth were the only ones up and about. Beth was holding the baby, bouncing her softly as she held a bottle to her lips. She glanced shyly up, watching as Merle marched down the stairs and toward the cellblock, not looking back. Daryl watched him, too, before looking up curiously at me. Hershel began to hobble toward the cellblock, as if he intended to try and talk to the irritatingly stubborn man that had run off to sulk.

I shook my head, waiting for the door to stop shaking before stepping through the frame and closing it softly behind me.

Daryl’s gaze remained on me as I climbed down the stairs. He rose to his feet once I’d reached the ground, gesturing with one hand toward the cellblock.

“The hell was that?”

“I told him not to be an asshole,” I answered honestly, giving the younger Dixon a shrug. “He didn’t like it. Now, he’s going to go off and sulk like a child for about an hour, and then he’ll come back and we will continue our day as if nothing at all happened. It’s like clockwork.”

I slid into one of the nearby seats, resting my forearms atop the cool metal table with a sigh. Daryl hovered for a moment on the other side, chewing his lip the same way his brother did when he was indecisive. After a moment, he slid into the seat opposite mine.

Beth seemed to take that as her cue to leave the room.

“How long you two –“

“About eight months,” I answered before Daryl could even asked, a slow smile spreading across my face. “Martinez and I found him when we were out in Atlanta on a run. He tried to rob us.”

A snorted chuckle escaped Daryl. “’Course he did.”

“A one-handed man – half-dead from blood loss, mind you – leaps out from an alleyway, covered in biter guts, waving this little toothpick of a knife at us and making demands.” I giggled softly. “Almost shot the crazy fucker on sight.”

Daryl’s lips were curled up into a slight grin as he looked at me from across the table, nodding along to my story. “What made you take him in?”

“I’ve never had a dog before,” I remarked with a smirk, which made him laugh.

He had a nice laugh, actually. A nice smile, too. It wasn’t harsh or cruel, like his brothers often was. 

“Honestly?” I asked after a moment. “I don’t really know. It wasn’t until after I’d kicked his ass that I even suggested it. Martinez thought I’d lost my damn mind. But we needed more people. More, uh… _hands_. For building and gardening, you know.”

I really had tried to avoid that joke. Honestly, I had.

Daryl, thankfully, was still at the stage in which he found it more amusing than annoying, which was a nice change.

“So, we scraped his ass off the sidewalk and took him back,” I continued. “Fixed him up. Gave him that metallic nightmare on his arm and asked him to join the guard. He was all for it, of course. Until the Governor paired him up with Sean.” I let out another soft chuckle, shaking my head at the memories that swirled on the edge of my mind. “First day? Broke his partners nose. Trashed one of the garden beds. Lost his gun amongst the tomatoes.”

Both Daryl and I laughed, trying to remain as quiet as we could. Most of the others were still asleep.

“The hell’d you keep him around for?” Daryl asked after a minute.

I looked off into the distance, reminiscing with a small smile. “Sean was one of our best fighters. Used to be in competitions and the like, you know, Before. You had of asked me a few days earlier who I’d put a bet on? Wouldn’t have been Merle same-amount-of-brain-cells-as-hands Dixon, I can tell you that. But he kicked his ass good.” I nodded. “The Governor wanted to keep him around, but he also wanted him under control. So, he put him with me.”

“Why you?” Daryl asked.

I looked back at him to see his light-hearted look replaced by a more sombre one. His eyes searched my face for a long moment and I immediately knew he was digging for information, just like Rick had asked him to. I looked at him evenly across the table as I debated with myself.

Should I tell them? Perhaps the knowledge of what I truly was would be helpful, aid them in their decisions going forward. I didn’t like the idea of keeping it a secret, mostly because that implied I’d need to figure out a way to keep it from them without being able to lie. If I were going to be staying with them, living alongside them, perhaps they deserved to know.

However… Rick had been a cop once. A sheriff. Our professions were practically polar opposites. The assassin and the police officer? There was no way in hell he’d trust me if he found out. No way he’d let me stay. And if I went, what was the likelihood that Merle went right along with me? Where would that leave Daryl? Abandoned once again?

No. No, I couldn’t tell them. Not yet.

“I don’t take his shit and I can kick his ass,” I answered after a long moment, letting a small smile pull at the corners of my lips. “And he leant that the hard way.”

Daryl studied me for another moment before dropping his gaze, a red tint lighting the pale skin of his cheeks. “That why everyone back there’s afraid of ya?”

I cocked a brow, but he couldn’t see it with his gaze fixed on his fingers where they rested atop the table in front of him. “Yes and no.”

He licked his lips and took a deep breath before looking back up at me. It was almost as if he were struggling to meet my eyes. Like he had to force himself to hold my gaze. “What’s that supposed mean?”

“There are layered reasons as to why some people – not all – back home are… unnerved by me,” I answered with a frown.

“Like what?”

I sighed through my nose, smiling ruefully. He wasn’t going to give this up, was he? “Fine,” I breathed. “Since you’re so set on digging for an explanation, let me give you this. Once upon a time, before Woodbury became what it is today, when there were no more than twenty of us, I did something that many considered to be… kind of fucked up.”

I met his gaze evenly.

“There were these three guys,” I continued. “One of them had a hate boner for me so hard it could shatter rock and the other two would have followed him down a river made entirely of shit if he’d asked nicely enough. Now, the one with the hate boner? He’d been with the Governor and I since the beginning, too, and he had always looked at me like I was… untrustworthy. Worrisome. Dangerous. You name it. Don’t know if it was a race thing, a woman thing, an alpha male thing, or – fuck, I don’t know – maybe he hated my tattoos? Either way, doesn’t matter. The point is, he and his buddies wanted me gone and once we started bringing more people in, and I started getting along with those people, started getting respect… My God, it drove him _nuts_.” I shook my head with a humourless chuckle, looking out toward the window. “They waited until it was my turn on the night shift. We patrolled the walls a lot more frequently back then – mostly because we’d had no idea how to actually build them at the beginning and some of the panels were, you know… prone to being knocked over. Anyway, it was my turn for the walk-around. I was alone, walking the usual path – didn’t really think I had a reason not to.”

I paused a moment, glancing back down at Daryl, who was now watching me with an intense gaze, jaw clenched. My expression lightened slightly, lips pulling up gently in the corners in a soft smirk.

“I think you see where this is going,” I stated. “Three men. One woman, alone in the dead of night. Doesn’t usually end in a pretty picture, does it?”

Daryl’s mouth opened and closed a few times as if he were struggling to find something to say. I shook my head and sighed.

“They didn’t.”

The tenseness of Daryl’s shoulders loosened almost immediately. He dropped his head a little, letting out a quite sigh of relief.

“They tried to,” I added after a moment, which made Daryl’s gaze snap back up to me. “But it’s going to take more than three idiots walking with down a concrete alleyway with hard sole shoes to take me down.”

“You heard ‘em,” Daryl guessed, his voice hoarse.

I nodded. “Like a fucking stampede of moronic inbreds.”

“What’d you do?”

“What do you think I did?”

We looked at each other over the table for a long moment as he tried to inspect every inch of my expression. I let him, waiting for his response, knowing full well he had likely already guessed.

“You killed ‘em,” he answered.

“Only one,” I corrected. It had been months and I still remembered the feel of his nails biting into my hips as he tried hold me still enough to cut off my jeans. Every now and then, I would feel them upon me like a phantom itch and would have to brush the palm of my hands across my skin just to be sure there was nothing there.

I averted my gaze from Daryl’s, looking slightly over his shoulder with a tight frown. “I wasn’t gentle about it, either. Left his body in pieces. Took his head off and put it beside his two friends faces like a fucked-up jack-o’-lantern alarm clock.” Another pause, this time only so I could take a deep breath in an attempt to calm my racing mind. “That was before we knew we all had the virus. That people would turn without being bit. You can imagine the shock when his head started… you know, growling at me.” I shuddered. “I think that’s where Phil got the idea for his trophy room. From me.”

Daryl remained silent as I glanced down at the table, feeling the slightest heat of shame colour my cheeks.

“The other two,” I continued, “I’d just knocked out. But when they woke up with Marcus’s head right in front of their faces, they ranted and raved to everyone they could, telling them I was the Devil incarnate. And, once everyone heard about the body… the head… Well, it was hard to convince them otherwise.”

Daryl was watching me with an odd expression on his face, as if he partially understood why I’d done it but was just as equally disturbed by how I’d gone about it.

I finally met his eyes again and gave him a hapless shrug. “Once more people started coming in, it became more of a, uh… urban legend type thing. Some people believed, some thought it was an exaggeration of some old incident no one really cared to remember anymore. Others just outright thought it was bullshit – that we’d made it up to make me look more intimidating.”

It was understandable reasoning. I may have been covered in tattoos, with a lean and well-muscled physique, but I wasn’t exactly what one would picture when they thought “Devil incarnate”. I knew I wasn’t difficult to look at. With white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes paired with my dark skin, I had this otherworldly, sharp kind of beauty that most found just as unnerving as they did enticing. Not to mention the pointed ears. I’d explained them away by remarking on the common practice of body-modification. People took one look at my tattoos and brought the idea I’d be into that kind of thing quite easily. Despite that, however, I still only stood at just over five-seven and was actually rather good natured on a normal day. My sense of humour and generosity helped ease some of my bad reputation, until all that was left of it was a covert whisper of caution between neighbours, a warning not to get on my “bad side”.

We both sat in silence for a long moment as he mulled over the rest, looking down at the table with a perplexed expression. I slid to the side, so I was straddling the chair, and leant sideways against the edge of the table as I looked up at the stream of sunlight coming in through the window. Birds were chirping nearby, barely loud enough to be heard over the moans of the dead in the field, but I could still make them out. My breathing began to slow as I focused on the sound, letting my mind and body relax for a long few minutes. Sometime during my explanation, my heartbeat had begun to race. I don’t know if it had been nerves or just the memory of what had happened, but I needed a moment to let it slow down.

Thankfully, Daryl took an exceedingly long time to run through his own thoughts. By the time I think he had finally figured out what he wanted to say, the sound of movement by the cellblock door made him close his mouth and tighten his shoulders.

Merle had returned.

#

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful.

Which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing. Merle, Daryl, and I spent most of it outside, sitting behind the wooden pallets they’d pushed up against the wire fence of the second-floor walkway, scopes trained on the tree line. Not much was said between us. Merle was still grumpy and Daryl, I guessed, didn’t usually talk much anyway.

They were a stark contrast, those two, yet somehow more alike than I think either of them cared to admit.

My favourite likeness of theirs was the way they scrunched up their noses when they were in deep thought. It made Merle look like that one Muppet that’s always in the theatre box, and Daryl… Well, it just made him look adorable and that’s all I’ll say on that.

Around lunchtime, Carol came outside carrying two tins of peaches. She handed both to Daryl with a soft smile before heading back inside. I watched her go curiously. Something about her was just… interesting to me. Didn’t know what, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling there was more to her wiry frame than met the eye.

Daryl used his bowie knife to open one of the cans and tipped it towards me with a nod.

“Here,” he grunted.

I tentatively put my fingers in and pulled out a soggy piece of peach, popping it into my mouth before returning my gaze to the trees.

Daryl pulled out one with his free hand and tilted his head back, dropping the peach down into his opened mouth.

“Oh, thanks, brother,” Merle remarked. “How kind of you to offer.” He reached out and snatched the can from Daryl’s grasp, tipping the entire thing into his mouth. Well, he tried to. More peach went onto his shirt than down his throat before Daryl had the chance to snatch the can back.

“The hells wrong with you?” he yelled. “That’s all we damn got!”

“What? I was hungry,” Merle responded though a mouthful, using his able hand to pick pieces of fallen peach from his shirt. “You know what I’m like when I’m hungry.”

“Yeah. An asshole.”

“That much different than your everyday self?” I asked, my head still turned toward the field. 

“Like you can talk,” Merle spat. “Little Miss McMurder.”

I turned my head slowly to give him a challenging look. “You know, I’ve always meant to ask if you and Martinez had to sit down and brainstorm that one out, or if it came to you naturally, like your unbridled affinity for turning your mouth into an asshole at a moment’s notice, spitting out nothing but shit?” Twisting my body more in his direction, I gave him a mock look of shock. “Oh, my God. Is that your superpower? Are you Asshole Mouth Man?”

“Ah, shut up,” Merle grumbled. “You ain’t funny.”

“Funnier than you,” I snapped back. 

“Ain’t hard,” Daryl remarked.

I glanced over at him with a smile to find a grin already pulling at the corners of his lips. When our gazes met, he held mine for barely more than a second before averting his eyes, cheeks growing red.

Merle reached out for the other can of peaches, which Daryl snatched out of his grasp and held it to his chest, protectively.

“You ain’t gettin’ no more after that,” Daryl growled.

“Bullshit I ain’t,” Merle snapped back. “Hand ‘em over, little brother.”

I watched the two of them begin to basically wrestle for the can, a brow cocked in muted amusement. Is this what actual brothers were supposed to be like? I was unsure whether I was jealous or relieved that I was estranged from my brothers, that they were barely more than strangers to me. In fact, I’d only ever met two out of the six brothers I supposedly had. Usually, I tried not to think about them, focusing instead on the man I called brother yet shared no blood with. Sterling. He was the son of my – second – adoptive father and had always treated me like his baby sister, even when neither of us had actually known of his relation to Alister.

The memory of Sterling made my heart begin to ache and the slight smile that had been on my lips as I watched the two brothers wrestling for a can of damn peaches began to fade.

Remnants of distant memories began to cloud my mind as I turned away from the two men and looked back out over the field, seeing without seeing. It had been so long since I’d last seen Sterling. We’d had a stupid argument that had ended with me slamming the door on him. He hadn’t wanted me to take another contract so soon after the last one, worried that I was burying myself in my job instead of actually dealing with my problems. Instead of dealing with the grief of losing my baby sister. And I’d known he was right, which, of course, had made me angry. Cue the yelling match and door slamming.

That was how I’d left things with the man I called brother. God, it hurt to think about. I’d known the second those bombs had dropped on Atlanta that New York had likely suffered a similar fate. I didn’t doubt Sterling and our father had had the sense to get out of the city before it reached that point and I trusted that both men were likely still alive, somewhere out there. If I could survive out here, they certainly could. After all, Sterling’s father, Alister, had been the one that had taught me almost everything I knew.

Somehow, through my rambling thoughts and over the ruckus coming from the two men behind me, I heard the car coming. My head jerked in the direction of the field. It was much too early for Rick and the others to be on their way back. I felt my entire body go into high alert as I peered through the gaps in the pallet, through the holes in the fence, to the edge of the tree line where the road began.

“Guys,” I said, not turning around.

They didn’t hear me.

“Oi! Assholes!” I yelled.

That got their attention. Daryl was lying on his back, one arm extended, fist clenched at the front of Merle’s shirt, the other, still holding the peaches, was thrown over his face. Merle hovered over him, his sharp metal arm behind his back while the other was latched onto the edge of Daryl’s leather vest. Their heads turned in my direction.

I jerked my thumb out towards the road. “We might have a problem.”

The two men pushed one another away, scrambling across the concrete to sit beside me and peer through the slit in the wooden pallet at the road. I did the same.

It was an old blue Camaro, making its way leisurely down the road outside the prison, a white flag tied to the tip of the antenna. Even from this distance, I could just make out the features of the man behind the wheel.

“It’s Sean,” I whispered, turning to glance at Merle.

He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “I don’t like this.”

I felt Daryl’s shoulder brush mine and looked at him, watching his eyes narrow at the approaching vehicle as it began to make its way up the path through the biter infested field. Reaching out, I gently tapped his upper arm. “You two stay here. I’ll go.”

“No,” Daryl argued.

“I know him,” I replied evenly. “And he knows me. I’ll be able to tell if he’s spinning bullshit. Besides, better I get shot than you.”

He opened his mouth to argue again but I was already standing, making my way over to the door. I heard Merle tell him to relax, that I had a handle on it, but I could still sense Daryl’s unease. Whether it was because he didn’t trust me, or because he didn’t like the situation as a whole, I didn’t know. I didn’t stick around to ask.

Carol, Hershel, and Glenn all gave me curious looks as I made my way through the main section of the cellblock. Maggie, who had been standing guard by the wire gate that lead out to the courtyard, glanced at me as I stepped through the cellblock door.

“Know him?” she asked.

I came to a stop beside her and nodded. “Well enough.”

We both stood in silence for a moment, watching the blue Camaro come to a halt by the closed wire gate. Biters began to claw at the car, scratching at the windows while Sean merely gazed apathetically out the front window, eyes locked on the two of us.

“If I get shot,” I whispered to her lightly, leaning sideways so I was close enough to covertly unclip the keys from her belt without her knowing. “Tell Merle I’ve always thought he’d look much better with a mullet.”

Maggie blinked at me, somewhat surprised by my odd remark, and watched me as I began to make my way across the courtyard with a confused look on her face. I heard her shocked intake of breath when she noticed I’d snatched the keys from her belt loop, but she did nothing to stop me.

Sean’s gaze remained locked on me as I approached, too. He and I were friendly enough usually, though I could see the betrayal and contempt behind his eyes the closer I got to the gate.

When I reached the chained edge of the wire gate, I came to a standstill, looking out through the diamond-shaped gaps, through the front window of the Camaro, at Sean. My gaze narrowed as it scanned the inside of the car, as best I could from this angle. I didn’t reach down and grab the chain until I was absolutely certain he was alone.

The gate scraped against the concrete as I pulled it open, barely far enough for him to get the car through. One of the biters got caught by the side mirror and was dragged inside along with him. I slid the gate closed before I dealt with it, using one of the two knives Rick had been comfortable enough to give me. 

Once that was dealt with, I leant up against the driver’s side door and bent over, gazing through the tinted window at Sean’s passive expression.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he manually wound down the window.

“What is it, mate?” I asked, keeping my tone as light and non-confrontational as I could.

“The Governor sent me,” Sean answered, and I immediately felt my shoulders tense. “I’m not here to make trouble, just pass on a message.”

I surveyed his expression, which was as blank as it always was, and looked into his eyes, trying to gage the seriousness of the situation. Was this the kind of message that involved a bullet to my face? No. He didn’t look nervous enough for that. In fact, he looked kind of bored. As if he had better things to do than play a passive game of Chinese Whispers.

“Go on, then,” I said carefully.

“He wants to meet,” he told me. “Wants a sit down with Rick.”

I snorted. “Does he now?”

Sean nodded once. “He’s set the place and time. All Rick’s gotta do is show up.” He reached down into the centre console and pulled out a torn off piece of a map. There was a message scrawled across the back of it, and I recognised the handwriting instantly. It was from Philip.

“_Meet at noon. Bring no more than three men. We’ll discuss our options._”

I shook my head, staring down at the note with furrowed brows for another moment before meeting Sean’s gaze. “We both know this is bullshit, right?”

Sean shrugged. “Is what it is.”

“He’s gonna kill the guy.”

Sean’s green eyes grew slightly more intense, narrowing into slits. “So what?”

“So?” I echoed. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“He shot up our home,” Sean hissed back with more vigour than I’d seen from him in a long time. “Let a bunch of biters in! We lost seven people.”

I blinked, taking a slight step back in surprise. That was news to me. Something cold settled in the pit of my stomach as I stepped back up to the driver’s side window, looking down at him with more intensity than before. “Who?”

“Lucy and Will,” Sean responded quickly, voice slightly shaken. “Amber. Conner. Juan and Marie.”

I could feel the sharp point of sorrow begin to pierce the inside of my throat. They had been good people. Good, innocent people. I swallowed back against the rising grief, taking a deep breath and forcing my expression to remain neutral. “That’s six,” was all I said.

Sean nodded. His eyes were locked on me so intensely I was almost disturbed. I didn’t understand why until a moment later, when he opened his mouth and told me the seventh name. He’d been waiting for my reaction. He wanted to see how hard it would hit me.

“Jasmine.”

It was like a punch to the gut. The amount of effort it took to remain standing, to stop myself from squeezing the joint where the side-mirror met the body of the car so hard I’d snap it right off, was almost enough to make me pass out. My throat tightened, chest constricting, mouth twitching ever so slightly into a frown. But I kept myself together. Secured that assassin’s mask of neutrality across my face.

“Was it quick?” I asked, the slight tremor in my voice betraying my emotion.

Sean scowled. “Biter tore off most of the flesh on her shoulder. By the time we found her, she already had the fever. Her mom made her ride it out and didn’t get the head ‘till after she Turned.”

Fucking Christ. That poor kid. That poor, innocent, kind-hearted kid. She’d been no older than Carl.

I took a long, deep breath to steady myself. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Sean spat before jerking his head toward the prison. “It was _them_. _They_ let them in.”

“Sean…” I started, but he cut me off.

“No, I ain’t here to listen to your excuses. You got your message. Tell Rick if he wants to sort this shit out, we’ll be waitin’. Now open that damn gate.”

I looked down at him as he straightened in his seat, staring steadily out the front window. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth. Trying to apologise would only be pushing my luck at that point, and I knew it. So, I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Alright,” I said, turning toward the gate.

Once he was gone, I remained standing by the fence, watching his car disappearing into the distance for a few minutes. Maggie approached me slowly and reached up to put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You alright?”

I ignored the question, lifting the keys in one hand and offering them back to her. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

She just let out a soft breath through her nose before taking them back, clipping them securely onto her belt loop. Without another word, she turned back toward her post.

I remained standing there for another moment, trying to piece my thoughts together, to sort through the roller-coaster of emotions warring inside me. Swallowing back against the sharp sensation in my throat, I turned around and began to make my way back to the cellblock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I posted this chapter a day earlier than I'd originally planned to, purely because I am endlessly excited to show you all the progression of the story! Please, do not hesitate to leave me a message. Comments honestly make my entire fucking day.  
Once again, I have this story on tumblr, too - (www.jamesbucksiclebarnes.tumblr.com/mau)
> 
> Thank you again for not murdering me on sight.  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	6. Diplomacy and Logic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove is rocked by some heartbreaking news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day! This one is short, I apologise. It's meant to be because the next one is SUPER LONG! So, in the immortal words of Scar, be prepared.

I barely remembered walking back, to be honest.

If any of the others tried to speak to me, I didn’t hear them, too caught up in my own thoughts. I forced myself to picture each face, remember each name Sean had spoken to me. Guilt began to gnaw at my stomach, my chest aching with each beat of my heart.

Twelve years of being an assassin and not once had I ever killed an innocent person. That had been my thing. Mass murders, serial killers, paedophiles, rapists, drug kingpins. They were my targets. Never the innocent and _absolutely_ _never_ did I accept a contract for anyone under the age of eighteen.

I hated knowing these people, these innocent people that I had come to know and care for, had died potentially due to something I had done. Logically, I knew the blame lay more elsewhere than it did with me, but I wasn’t exactly working within the realm of logic at that moment.

When I stepped through the door to the concrete overpass, Merle and Daryl were both standing, waiting for me. They both gave me a curious look, but I couldn’t meet either of their gazes. Silently, I walked up to them and handed Daryl the torn piece of map, moving past him without a word and sitting back down on the concrete behind the wooden pallet.

“The hell’s this?” Daryl asked after a moment.

I heard Merle snatch the paper from his brother. “Bullshit is what it is. Ain’t no way this isn’t a trap. Right, Jacques?”

My lips remained drawn tightly together in a frown. When I didn’t answer, Merle came to sit beside me, giving me a curious, concerned look.

“What else he say?”

I glanced over to him. “We left the wall panel open when we left. Biters got in.”

His face smoothed out into understanding and he took a deep breath, pulling his legs up to rest his forearms against his knees. “How many dead?”

“Seven.”

Silence.

Daryl came to lean against the gate on my other side, looking down at us with a frown.

“Jas–“ My voice was hoarse as I fought against the urge to choke up. Clearing my throat, I took a deep breath and tired again, my tone stronger and clearer. “Jasmine was one of them.”

Merle let out a slow breath. “Damn. Poor kid.”

I made a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat, nodding as I chewed the inside of my lip. Softly, Merle placed his good hand on my knee and gave a reassuring squeeze.

“I know you cared about the little thing,” he said, his tone somewhat at war with his expression. Comforting people had never exactly been his strong suit and he looked incredibly uncomfortable as he tried to reassure me. “But it wasn’t our fault.”

“Kinda was,” I replied. “We left the panel open.”

“All of us did,” Daryl put in, lowering himself down into a crouch. “It weren’t just you.”

I clenched my teeth in an effort to keep my emotions in check. This was not the time to lose my composure. I had to keep myself together, at least until this bullshit with the Governor was sorted. After that, I could find a quiet place to think and let myself feel. But not now. Now, I needed to focus.

“If Rick decides to take the Governor up on this meeting,” I began, eyes focused on the tree line. “He needs to know how it’s most likely going to go down.”

Merle nodded.

My gaze turned from the field to Daryl’s face, where he still crouched a few feet from me, his brows furrowed in a tight frown.

“Most likely scenario is, the Governor will make an offer, one that will be either ridiculously one sided or functionally cruel and Rick, in all good sense, will decline. After that, the Governor will either shoot him in the face, or he’ll honour the peace and let him leave – depending on who Rick’s decided to bring along. Either way, he’ll paint the picture of malicious dealings to the people back in Woodbury. Make it sound like Rick wouldn’t take a fair deal because all he wants is blood.”

Daryl nodded along, biting his lower lip in thought. He looked evenly back at me for a moment before averting his gaze, glancing out to the biter infested field to his right. “Rick can take three people, meaning the Governor will have three, too, right?”

I nodded. “Martinez, for sure.”

“Cowboy Conner, too,” Merle put in.

I flinched a little, turning my head slightly in his direction before giving it a shake.

“No shit. The cowboy’s gone?”

“Yep,” I answered. “Hat and all. Which means either Sean or Hector will be the second choice.”

Merle nodded his agreement. “Third?”

It took me a moment to sort through the possibilities, to put myself in the Governor’s shoes and look through the best potential options. Somehow, I settled on one name – one I hadn’t quite expected.

“Milton,” I said.

Merle jerked in surprise. “Bullshit. That little pussy ain’t gonna –“

“He will,” I cut in. “If the Governor asks him to, he will. And I don’t doubt that’s exactly what will happen.”

“Why him?”

“Diplomacy and logic.” I looked up to Daryl. “It’s the same reason Rick’s most likely going to take Hershel.”

Daryl scrunched his nose in confusion. “Makes you say that?”

“Call it an educated guess.” I knew because it was what I would do. Because it was what I’d taught Phil to do. Negotiations always needed a logical party, a diplomatic or “wise” party, a guardian, and an intimidator. I didn’t doubt the Governor thought himself the “wise” party, which left Milton as the logical one. Martinez would be the guard and Sean, with his six-foot-two, muscular frame, would be the intimidator – a role that was usually my own.

#

It was another three hours before Rick, Michonne, and Carl returned.

The sun had begun to dip below the horizon, casting a deep orange glow across the sky. Shadows stretched across the field like reaching hands, their darkness cooling the air around us until I began to shiver.

When I spotted their car, I nudged Merle – who was snoring beside me, his elbow resting against the edge of the pallet, face pressed against his palm – and jerked my head toward the gate. Daryl had left us a little while ago, likely to fill the others in on what had transpired between Sean and I, of the message he had delivered.

We made our way through, informing the group inside that Rick and the others had returned, and headed out to open the gate. Once they’d passed through and Merle had made sure the gate was secure, we met them as they climbed out of the car.

Rick didn’t even speak. He just gave us all a look, this sly little grin pulling at the corners of his lips before he walked around to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

My brows rose into my hairline.

The trunk was literally _full _of weaponry. And a funky little cat statue that Michonne quickly snatched up before anyone else could touch it.

“Think this’ll be enough?” Rick asked after everyone had gathered by the back of the car, his gaze going to Merle and I.

I let out a little surprised chuckle. “Sure as shit isn’t a bad start.”

Rick and I grinned at one another for a moment and I felt myself beginning to feel… hopeful. Maybe we _would_ get through this. And maybe, just maybe, I could find a home here with these people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments! I love reading them! Again, thank you all for reading! Hope you're enjoying it!
> 
> Thanks again for not shooting me on sight,  
Love Always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	7. Old Friends, New Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick invites Synnove to accompany him to meet with the Governor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day bitches. Surprise! Rapid-fire chapter upload! As promised, it's a relatively long one, but I hope you all enjoy it!

I’d been right.

We pulled up outside the abandoned little shack an hour or so before noon. I’d told Rick that the Governor would be there early, likely to set up some kind of measure in case things went south, and he’d agreed that the sooner we got there, the better. There’d been little surprise in the first two he’d chosen to take along with him. Daryl and Hershel. The guard and the wise man. But when he had turned to me, asking – not ordering – if I would come along, too, I’d given him a blank faced stare. Was he joking? Did he honestly trust me enough to stand beside him, right in front of the man I had once served loyally?

There had been a small murmur of discontent amongst some of the group. Obviously, whatever sense of trust Rick had developed for me was not universally shared amongst his people. That was fine by me. I understood well enough and didn’t hold it against them.

“Daryl said you knew how this would go,” Rick had said, stepping closer to me and lowering his voice. “That you’d know what to expect. That true?”

I had nodded, furrowing my brows and looking at him with a curious, searching gaze.

He had stepped even closer, close enough to reach, and ducked his head toward me. “If it came to it, could you fire on them?”

That had made me pause. I blinked a few times, trying to sort through the images and emotions that question drawn out from their hidden depths. “Honestly? I don’t know. The people aren’t at fault for what the Governor’s doing. Even those in his inner circle have been manipulated into this. They’re people I know. People I care about. But if they shoot first?” I chewed my lower lip and paused. Would I even be able to say it? If it were a lie, the words would stick in my throat like tar. If it wasn’t a lie… What did that say about me?

My hesitation lasted only a second.

“I could do it.”

And that was how I ended up in the backseat of Rick’s car as we pulled up outside the abandoned feed store. Hershel sat in front. I’d convinced the old man to literally duct-tape a gun to the thigh of his missing leg, and he reached down to readjust it as Rick gestured for him to remain in the car.

Rick and I slid out of the vehicle as Daryl pulled up on his motorbike, closing the doors quietly behind us. He silently indicated for us to scope the area. We moved together through the overgrown area, around the large water tanks, to the back of the series of decrepit shacks. A biter lay unmoving in the grass a few feet from the last water tank. I tapped Daryl on the shoulder and pointed it out. He stepped toward it, knelt down and pressed a finger against the bullet hole in its forehead.

His finger came back red. It was fresh.

The three of us shared a look. They had arrived before us, just as I’d suspected they would. Which meant they were somewhere nearby.

I pressed my finger against my lips, indicating for the two of them to stay silent as I strained my ears, listening for the slightest sound of life. Over the gentle wind that caressed the trees and grass around us, through the creaking of settling wood, I heard the slightest sound of a footstep from the shack to our right. I looked to Rick and jerked my head toward the sound.

“In there,” I mouthed.

Rick gave me a curious look before nodding, clicking off the safety on his revolver and stalking over toward the back door. He gestured for Daryl and me to go around to the side, where a series of broken windows looked in on the shadowy interior.

We both remained close as we waded through the near knee-high grass, moving as silently as possible until we reached one of the lower windows. Cautiously, Daryl peaked inside through the broken pane, lifting the hand not holding his crossbow and indicating I remain a few paces back.

Fine by me. I could already see from where I stood. My eyes made short work of the shadows, adapting to the change of lighting quickly, allowing me to peer through the darkness and at the outline of a man, slowly emerging from behind a pile of junk.

Rick came into the edge of my view, partially obscured by the back of Daryl’s head, as he raised his gun at the Governor.

I felt my teeth grinding as I watched him lift his hands in surrender and chuckle, smiling at Rick as if everything he’d done had been nothing more than an amusing prank.

The smile didn’t last long. Rick remained standing, a solid force of will, the silver barrel of his revolver pointed directly at the Governor’s one remaining eye.

Slowly, the Governor lowered his hands. “We have a lot to talk about,” he said plainly.

Rick stared evenly back at him. “You attacked us. Makes things pretty clear.”

A sound off to my right made me jerk my head towards the sudden noise. Was that a car? I knew Hershel was behind the wheel of our own vehicle, but this sounded too distant to be him.

“I was trying to make things clear,” the Governor stated clearly. The sound of his voice, pleasant and light in tone, made me want to chew off my own tongue in frustration. “I could have killed you all. More than once. But, I didn’t. And here we are.”

There was another long, stretching silence as Rick stared down the barrel of his gun at the Governor. The one-eyed man began to slowly reach down toward his belt, making Rick jerk slightly forwards in anticipation, but the Governor quickly raised his hands again.

“I’m going to remove my weapon,” he explained gently. “Show that I mean to negotiate in good faith.”

I almost blew an artery trying to hold back my snort. That was such unabashed bullshit and both of them knew it.

“I’d like you to do the same,” the Governor said, reaching back down toward the buckle on his belt, pausing briefly to look back up at Rick. “May I?”

Rick nodded, though kept his gun trained on the other man as he unbuckled his weapons belt and hung it on a nail in the post by his right.

“See,” the Governor said, keeping his hands partially lifted as he stepped toward the table and lowering himself down into the seat. “No trouble.”

My lip curled up over my teeth as I watched him nod toward Rick, indicating he do the same.

_Don’t do it_, I thought. _He’s got a gun under the table. I would bet my life on it_.

Rick, seemingly heeding my telepathic call, holstered his gun yet kept his belt firmly around his waist as he stepped toward the table and slowly sunk down into the seat.

“Well, suit yourself,” the Governor remarked.

That sound again. I turned my head back in the direction of it. It was definitely not Hershel, as I could hear our car slowly rolling down the street out the front of the shack. Delicately, I stepped forward, my foot barely making a sound against the dried grass, and touched Daryl on the shoulder. He turned to face me, brow raised, and I jerked my head in the direction of the road.

He nodded and the two of us began to make our way back to the front of the shack.

Hershel rolled to a stop when he saw us emerging from the side of the building, looking through the open window with a concerned expression.

“He’s already in there,” Daryl stated.

“I don’t see any cars,” Hershel remarked, frowning as he looked out the front window, to the empty road ahead.

“They’re coming,” I said, looking over the roof of our car to the field of decrepit shacks opposite us. The sound of the rough engine in the distance was growing louder.

Daryl and Hershel both glanced at me with confused looks.

I gestured toward the sound. “They’re coming.”

Was it not loud enough now for them to hear it, too? They weren’t exactly being subtle.

Sure enough, a few moments later, the two men straightened and turned towards where I was gesturing. A four-wheeler came crashing through the overgrown grass, bouncing over piles of dirt and rubbish before it came to a sliding halt a few meters away from our own car, almost knocking over the parked bike. Daryl lifted his crossbow.

I could see Sean sitting in the driver’s seat and shook my head. Should have known. He was an absolute maniac behind the wheel.

The two men in the front – Martinez and Sean – climbed out of the car, slamming their doors behind them. A third body slowly emerged from the back seat, a deeply uncomfortable look on his face, sad eyes looking out from behind round-rimmed glasses.

Milton.

I would have gone up and hugged the odd man were Martinez not already making his way towards us, dark eyes fixed on me. Daryl made the point of stepping between us, keeping his crossbow trained on the bald man as he glared over the hood of our car at me.

“The hell you doin’ here?” Martinez spat.

“Looking after everyone,” I answered with a dead-eyed grin. “As per usual.”

“Bullshit,” he snapped.

Sean stepped forwards and grabbed Martinez’s shoulder, pulling him back a step. They exchanged a look before Martinez let out an irritated sigh and lifted his hands in surrender.

Daryl kept his crossbow trained on him. And then, a fourth person exited the car.

Andrea.

Daryl’s crossbow slid to the side. “Why’s your boy already in there?” he demanded.

Andrea blinked. “He’s here?”

“Yup,” Daryl responded.

Her expression contorted into a look of annoyance as she shook her head, turning away from Daryl and making her way over to the heavy metal door blocking the entrance to the rundown shack. She grunted as she pulled it open, storming inside with an indignant, “What’s going on?”

The Governor responded with an easy, “Nothing. Your friend isn’t much for small talk.”

“You want to talk,” Rick said harshly. “Talk.”

Andrea let out a sigh as she moved further into the room. “I wanted you to talk. Too many people have died for no reason. Let’s end this. Save the bullets for the real threat.”

“_The threat in the North_,” I muttered to myself, glancing up at the others and realizing that none of them could actually hear Andrea anymore. Clearing my throat in an attempt to pass off my joking comment, I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jeans and leant up casually against the hood of our silver car, ignoring the scathing looks I was getting from both Martinez and Sean.

“We can solve this,” Andrea continued, her voice authoritative, though with an inch of desperation beneath it. “That’s why I asked you to come here.”

Ah. So, this was her idea? Should have guessed.

Milton, who was standing awkwardly by the side of their car, looking as if he wished he were anywhere but here, glanced over to me. “Can you…?”

I nodded. He, like Merle and Martinez, knew that my range of hearing far surpassed their own. At one point, he’d wondered if the “body-modification” had caused enhanced detection of vibrations in the air and had asked me if he could study them. I’d responded with a gentle “Uh, no” and he, respectfully, had never asked again. Though, I would often catch him gazing at the pointed tips of my ears, eyes narrowed behind those circular glasses in thought.

Martinez’s gaze grew less hostile for a brief moment as he glanced between the open doorway and back to me.

“I know what you’ve done,” came Rick’s voice, gravelly and harsh. “I heard about the raids. The heads.” There was pause. “Maggie.”

My head jerked in the direction of the voices, blood running cold before hitting boiling point a few milliseconds later.

The Governor was quick to respond. “Merle did that.”

A scowl settled on my face.

“No,” Rick growled. “You know what I’m talking about.”

The Governor moved quickly in an attempt to breeze over the subject, his voice pointed and fast. “You know all about me and I know all about you. I don’t care about any of that. We’re here to move forward.”

I scoffed aloud, which made everyone look at me in question. Milton began to approach, but Daryl was quick to lift his crossbow and step towards me in defence, bringing the stuttering man to a halt.

“I – I just –“

“The hell are you?” Daryl asked, voice low, aggressive.

Milton cleared his throat, eyes fixed on the pointed end of the bolt pointed at him. “M-Milton Mamet.”

“Great,” Daryl scoffed. “He brought the butler.” 

Both Martinez and I chuckled at that, glanced at one another, and then quickly looked away.

“I’m his advisor,” Milton said defensively, glancing across to me, as if he expected I’d jump to his aid.

I didn’t.

Daryl lowered the bow slightly, jerking his chin up to look down his nose at the spectacled man. “What kind of advice?”

Milton licked his lips before responding. “Planning. Biters.” He paused and cleared his throat, surveying Daryl with a frown. “I, uh. You know, sorry. I don’t feel like I need to explain myself to the henchmen.”

And up went the crossbow.

“You’d better watch your mouth, sunshine,” Daryl remarked.

“Daryl,” I cautioned, just as Martinez pushed himself away from the bonnet of their car and took a step toward the younger Dixon.

“If we’re all gonna be out here, pointing guns at each other all day, then you need to do me a favour and shut your mouth,” Martinez growled.

Daryl lowered the crossbow, but it was only so he could approach Martinez, getting right into his face, close enough for their foreheads to almost touch.

Martinez looked up at him with a slight grin, as if daring him to do something.

“We don’t need this,” Hershel yelled from my left. “If it all goes south in there, we’ll be at each other’s throats soon enough.”

Martinez looked to him, frowning a moment before sliding his gaze across to me. Sean mimicked his concerned look. As did Milton.

Daryl followed their gaze to me with a cocked brow.

I met all their eyes in turn before plastering a wide, unhinged grin on my face. “Scared, boys?”

Martinez scoffed. “Please.”

Sean didn’t respond. Milton just lifted his hands to take his glasses from his face, rubbing the glass with his shirt before putting them back on. His hands were shaking.

Daryl moved away, stepping closer to our car and readjusting his hold on the crossbow.

“Hey, Martinez,” I called, still grinning. “Remember that time, would’ve been two weeks ago now, when I kicked your ass in the arena?” He met my gaze with a partial smirk that rapidly began to fade as I continued. “Oh, wait. Was that that other time? Or the time before that? Oh! Or was the time _before_ that?”

He gave a fake laugh. “Funny.”

I smirked. “Oh, I know. Everyone watching seemed to think so, too.”

Sean’s chuckle was genuine as he tried to lift his hand to muffle it.

Martinez caught the sound and turned on the man, pointing an accusatory finger. “You laughing? Think it’s funny? Like she hasn’t kicked your ass to the ground, too?”

“Now, now, boys,” I remarked. “Let’s play nice with our friends, huh?”

“Shut up,” Martinez snapped.

I lifted my hands, but the grin on my face didn’t fade. Not until I heard the voices from inside filter through the noises out here. My gaze turned from the three men I’d once called friends and back to the shadowed interior of the shack.

“I’ve known you both at different times,” Andrea was saying. “But only after the world went to shit. And you’ve both stepped up for the good of others at great personal risk. There’s no reason –“

“Get to it,” the Governor snapped.

There was a sound like crinkled paper being thrown and then Rick’s voice, clear and crisp, spoke. “Woodbury takes west of the river,” he said. “The prison takes east. No one crosses, no one trades.”

“He’s right,” Andrea agreed. “We should hammer out boundaries then leave each other –“

“I’m sorry,” the Governor cut in, sounding almost offended. “What is this?”

“It’s a solution,” Andrea answered.

“Absolutely not.”

I tensed slightly, which made Milton and Martinez both straighten. Daryl glanced between them and back to me, the grip on his crossbow tightening. I could feel their eyes on me as I looked toward the shack with a pursed frown.

“What the hell am I doing here?” Rick asked aggressively. “You told me –“

“Told him what?” the Governor cut in.

Rick ignored him. “You told me he was going to be willing to talk.”

The Governor let out a chuckle. “I am, but the truth is, Rick – she’s in no position to make such an offer, anyway. I’m here for one thing only. Your surrender.”

Rick scoffed. “Oh, you want surrender? Come get it.”

I pushed myself off the bonnet of the car, taking a deep breath through my nose. Things were going to go very south, very quickly on this trajectory.

Milton, who had taken out a notepad to begin writing in, put his pen back in his pocket and stood straight, watching me. Both Martinez and Sean were so tense, I could feel the heat from their bodies from here.

“You think we hit Woodbury heavy last time?” Rick all but hissed.

I could tell by the way Andrea jumped in so quickly that Rick had been ready to continue that rant. “Just take it easy, alright?”

Rick took in a deep breath.

“We’re here to settle this,” she continued.

“You’re right,” the Governor said softly. “Would you step outside?”

I felt my brows rise at that, almost found myself smiling at Andrea’s incredulous, “What?”

“Rick and I, we got a lot to talk about,” the Governor added.

“I’m not leaving,” Andrea insisted.

Honestly, I would have felt a little better if she did stay. At least with her in there, with her eyes on him, the Governor would need to keep up a semblance of his façade.

But whatever hope I’d had that she’d convinced him were dashed a second later when Rick, the idiot, agreed. “I came to talk to him,” he stated simply, and Andrea emerged from the darkened interior a moment later.

She looked at all of us before shaking her head and letting out an irritated sigh, sinking down onto the concrete bench resting against the front of the building, beside the door. The poor woman looked exhausted as she put her face in her hands.

Martinez glanced over to me before crossing the road, walking up to the metal door and pulling it closed. When he turned back, he looked at me with a smug little grin.

I cocked a brow. Did he really think I wouldn’t be able to hear through that door?

He seemed happy enough with himself, anyway, as he walked off to the side.

Everyone seemed to go off in their own directions, then. Except Daryl and me. He came to lean against the car bonnet beside me, nodding toward the door questioningly.

I nodded.

Admittedly, it was slightly harder to hear their voices through the door, but I could still make out enough to hear my and Merle’s names being mentioned. It was Rick that had brought us up, which didn’t surprise me.

“Merle and Jacques. They were your lieutenants, right?” he asked.

The Governor let out a small chuckle. “Merle was, yeah. Synnove was more… part of the inner circle.”

“But they worked together? At your behest?”

“Merle didn’t work well with others until I put her with him,” the Governor answered evenly.

“So, you knew he was erratic?” Rick asked, somewhat accusingly.

There was a pause during which I was willing to guess the Governor nodded his admittance. “She kept his behaviour relatively in line. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time? So, you blame them both for scooping up Maggie and Glenn in the first place?” Rick asked.

“Exactly,” the Governor agreed. “I was trying to sort it out when you attacked.”

I felt the bones of my knuckles aching with the urge to storm in there and punch the one-eyed dick in the face.

“When those two are left to their own devices, without orders to follow, they can be wild cards,” he continued. “But they’re effective. Get the dirty jobs done.”

Rick let out a wordless sound of disapproval. “I thought you’d take responsibility.”

“I thought you were a cop, not a lawyer.”

“Either way, I don’t pretend to be a governor.” Rick snorted a humourless chuckle. “You’re the town drunk who knocked over my fence and ripped up my yard. Nothing more.”

I felt myself grinning slightly, which prompted Daryl to nudge me with his elbow, furrowing his brows in question. Had the Governor not continued to speak, I would have repeated Rick’s remark word-for-word, purely because I found it so amusing.

“Didn’t you ever misjudge someone?” he asked Rick, pausing for a moment as if in thought. “Andrea told me about your baby. That it might be your partners.”

Oh, _damn_. I hadn’t known _that_.

“But you’re caring for her and I admire that. Restitution for your own lack of insight. For failing to see the devil beside you, unlike me.”

Rick was silent for a moment before he echoed, “Unlike you?”

“You don’t see it yet, but you will,” the Governor responded coolly. “The devil’s in that prison with you.”

“Merle?” Rick asked with more than just a touch of scepticism.

“Synnove le Jacques.”

I jerked upright. Was the Governor going to tell Rick the truth? He knew what I used to be, before, knew that I’d been a killer from the start. I didn’t doubt he’d figured Rick would be none too pleased to find out I’d kept that a secret from him.

Daryl started to raise his crossbow in response to my sudden movement. I waved at him to lower it with a shake of my head.

“The devil beside me.” The Governor let out a soft breath. “Well, not anymore, it would seem. That’s the problem with demons. No loyalty.”

“You little fucker,” I breathed, beginning to walk across the road toward the door.

Daryl caught my arm and dragged me to a stop with a soft, “_Hey_!”

I let out a harsh breath, but allowed him to pull me to a halt, turning to look at him with a nod of my head. He was right. Storming in there right now would do no one any good.

Daryl led me over to the side of the building, not noticing that Martinez was standing there, beside the water tanks. When he spotted him, we both came to a slow, cautious stop.

Martinez looked back at us with a cocked brow, jerking his head towards the gap between the water tanks and lifting his bat.

I could hear the moans from here, but Daryl and I walked over to Martinez and took a look for ourselves anyway. Andrea must have heard them, too, as she appeared behind us like a bad smell.

“After you,” Daryl said, gesturing with his free hand toward the group of biters lost within the paths between the water tanks.

Martinez shook his head, spinning the bat in his hands like he was the main event at the local marching band. “No way. You first.”

From behind me, Andrea scoffed. She surged forwards and all but tackled the closest biter, shoving a knife through its eye with the barely restrained rage of a woman on the edge. Honestly, I kind of felt for her in that moment.

Martinez looked at Daryl with a smirk. “Pussy.”

And thus began the dick measuring portion of my afternoon.

First up was Martinez, twirling that bat around like it was an actual sport before slamming it to the side, crushing a biters skull against the metal wall of the water tank. He turned to give Daryl a shit-eating grin.

Next, Daryl, creeping around the corner with his crossbow raised, fired one shot into the forehead of a nearby biter. He looked at Martinez with a cocked brow.

Andrea and I paused to glance at one another, rolling our eyes for good measure. She turned back, apparently content to await the end of the meeting in silence, whilst I continued on. Not going to lie, I kind of wanted to know who won.

Daryl, shouldering his crossbow instead of pausing to notch another arrow, pulled his bowie knife from the sheath attached to his belt. Martinez stepped around him whilst he was in the midst of the movement, lifting his bat and clocking the approaching biter over the head with it. The dead man careened backwards, cracking the back of its skull against the water tower and falling to the floor. Without missing a beat, Martinez turned to the side and, in the same swing, stuck a second biter across the side of the head. Its skull caved inwards and it, too, fell to the ground.

Ignoring the smug little grin Martinez shot his way, Daryl flipped the bowie knife around in his hand and threw it, nailing one of the oncoming biters in the centre of its head with the blade.

I pursed my lips in an apprising grin. Even Martinez gave him an approving look after that.

“Not bad,” the man remarked.

Now, it was my turn. I didn’t know whether or not I was invited to this measuring contest, but I was about to show them what the word “big” really meant. Pulling the two knives I’d been gifted back at the prison from my belt loops, I adjusted my hold on them and waited. The men in front of me didn’t notice, too focused on the pair of biters approaching from the opening before us. They began to move forward to handle them.

In one fluid motion, I thrust out both of my arms. The knives flew to the sides, bouncing against the metal of the water tanks on either side of the two men, making them jump, before they ricochet forward and embedded themselves into the foreheads of the two approaching biters. They fell to the ground in a slump.

Both men paused mid-step, looking down at the two undead creatures silently. I walked between them with an amused, “Excuse me, boys,” and collected the two knives, wiping their bloodstained blades on my thighs.

When I turned back to look at them, I was met with two very different expressions. Martinez, who was quite familiar with my showboating bullshit, was merely giving me an amused little grin, slightly shaking his head. Daryl, on the other hand, was staring at me with wide eyes, his mouth partially open.

I grinned. “What? We all have our talents.”

He shook his head, licking his lips before clamping his mouth closed and used the action of sheathing his bowie knife as an excuse to avert his gaze from mine.

I chuckled low in my throat before something by my boot caught my eye. “Would you lookie here.” Bending down into a crouch beside one of the dead, I reached into its front shirt pocket and pulled out a partially scrunched packet of Lucky’s. “He brought us a gift. How thoughtful.”

Daryl snorted and stepped forward, coming to stand beside me. He crouched down beside the same biter and began to pat his pockets down, stopping when he felt something and reaching in to pull out a lighter. Once he’d stood, he realized how close we were and awkwardly cleared his throat before stepping past me, out into the overgrown field behind the shack.

I followed him out a step, pulling one of the cigarettes from the packet before tossing them at Daryl, who did the same. Putting the unlit smoke between his lips, Daryl turned and extended his hand out toward Martinez, who was now leaning up against the wooden pole planted in the ground a few feet from the water tanks.

He shook his head. “Nah. Prefer menthols.”

Daryl snorted. “Douchebag.”

I leant up against the uneven metal siding of the water tank, reaching out to take the lighter from Daryl once he’d lit up. The first inhale was like simultaneously being punched in the chest and being kissed by God. I blew out the plume of smoke and tipped my head back with a grin. It had been almost three weeks since Merle and I had finished the last packet we’d found. He’s smoked his half in about a day, which had made me give him a disapproving look. Smoking had never been an issue for me, of course, as whatever damage the cancer sticks did to my lungs would be healed before I even had a chance to light another. Merle, on the other hand, was human and fragile. I was honestly surprised his lungs weren’t blackened husks by this point if that was how he usually smoked.

Daryl seemed to be a little held back, thankfully. He actually took a break between each pull.

Silence settled for a moment. I could hear the soft sounds of conversation coming from both inside the shack and outside it. The voices were too hushed to be easily discernible.

“You army or something?” Daryl asked after a moment, looking sideways at Martinez.

“Nah, I just hate these things,” Martinez answered, glancing down at the blood splattered upon the silver of his bat. He took a deep breath. “After what they did to my wife… Kids.”

I pursed my lips and swallowed back the lump in my throat. He had spoken to me about his wife once or twice. The subject of his children, however, had been a wound that had always been too fresh to touch. I’d respected that. Losing a child was not something you ever really got over.

“Sucks,” Daryl remarked. Despite the simple way he spoke it, I could tell it was heartfelt.

Martinez nodded silently, his gaze slowly drifting up to meet mine. He cleared his throat after a moment and looked back to Daryl, gesturing toward the shack in which both leaders were currently talking. “You know this is a joke, right? They ain’t gonna work anything out. Sure, they’ll do their little dance; today, tomorrow. And the next day, they’ll give the word.”

Daryl nodded. “I know.”

Martinez looked back to me, pointing the tip of his bat in my direction. “He might not have you or Merle anymore, true. But he’s still got us. One-on-one, you might be good, but all of us at once?” He clicked his tongue, indicating his doubt.

I looked evenly back at him. He was right. With their weaponry and numbers, all gunning for me at once, I’d be a lost cause. There was only one thing I’d be able to do in that situation and, even then, it might not be enough. Magic did not come easily to me these days and I still viewed preforming such a feat in front of humans as an offence punishable by death. It was still up in the air whether or not the world from which my kind come was still connected to this one, or if they had cut themselves off in order to protect the people from this virus.

It was better not to test those waters, however. Lest I drown.

Still. It was another advantage I had. The only one absolutely no one knew about.

My silence seemed to satisfy Martinez as he let out a little chuckle, as if he’d won some kind of argument I hadn’t been aware of. I surveyed him for a moment, wondering exactly what the Governor had said to him to make him so suddenly hostile toward me. A few days ago, we’d been friends. He’d shared a drink with me on the balcony of the town hall no more than a week ago. I understood that siding against Woodbury would cause some tension between us, but I didn’t think it would spur him to hatred, especially not when he had shared his own concerns about the Governor’s recent behaviour with me. He had been the only one I’d been able to talk with about it, considering Merle had kept his opinion on the matter to himself. We’d agreed something had to be done, so why was he mad at me for being the one to finally put their foot down?

“How are we on opposite sides of this?” I asked after a long drag of my cigarette.

I felt Daryl turn back toward us as Martinez clenched his jaw.

“We shouldn’t be on opposites of this.”

“That was you who chose that,” Martinez snapped.

“No,” I answered with a shake of my head, pointing an accusatory finger over toward the shack to my right. “He made that choice for me. Don’t let him do the same for you.”

“I make my own damn decisions,” Martinez argued, pushing himself off the wooden post in order to stand tall before me. “No one else.”

“So, you choose to let him choose for you?” I stepped away from the water tank, straightening as I looked evenly back at the man I had once called friend.

“He ain’t choosing nothing for me,” Martinez growled.

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I wanted to be. I wanted to meet the asshole that shot up our town! The one you’re getting on your damn knees for!”

“Hey!” Daryl yelled, stepping forward, reaching behind him for the crossbow. “Watch your damn mouth!”

“Daryl,” I cautioned, lifting a hand and shaking my head at him.

His attempt to defend me were appreciated, but he needn’t get in the middle of this. I could take a verbal jab just as well as I could take a physical one.

“You and I shouldn’t be fighting over this,” I stated as evenly as I could. “After those army guys, you and I agreed something wasn’t right. You said someone needed to do something. Don’t get pissy at me because I’m the one doing it.”

Martinez blinked, looking down at me with a scowl. Behind his dark eyes, I could see the conflict, see the emotions behind them as he debated whether I was worth a second chance. Whether it was he or I on the right side of this. After a moment, he let out a sigh and shook his head, turning toward Daryl and nodding at the pack of smokes sticking out of his pocket.

Daryl, after glancing at me and receiving a nod, took the packet out and offered him one. I watched Martinez light up the smoke with a pursed frown. He kept his gaze on his boots as he inhaled one, long puff of smoke and blew it out through his nose.

“You left the wall open,” he said after a long moment, voice barely more than a whisper. “The biters… they got in. And you weren’t there. You could’ve cut ‘em all down on your own, but you weren’t there.”

I felt that sharp sensation in my throat and had to swallow back against the urge to break down. The muscles of my throat tensed, my jaw clenching as I looked away, toward the shack. It took no more than a second for me to compose myself again, but it felt as if an entire age had passed by the time I looked back to Martinez.

“I heard,” I said softly. “I’m sorry, but he didn’t give me much choice. He was going to kill me, Martinez. You know it as well as I do.”

He shook his head. “That ain’t true. He put you in that arena and said the winner would live because he knew the winner would’ve been you.”

“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?” I asked. Perhaps the Governor had gotten to him worse than I’d initially imagined.

Martinez remained silent in response to that question, however, and I looked over to Daryl with a perplexed expression. He met my gaze evenly and offered a one-shouldered shrug, jerking his head back toward the road.

I took one more drag of my cigarette before tossing it to the ground, crushing it beneath my boot. Blowing out the cloud of smoke, I walked beside Daryl back to the road with one last glance over to Martinez.

He was watching me leave. I let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you so much for reading! I know I harp on this a lot, but seriously, if you enjoyed it (even if you didn't), don't forget to leave a comment! I thrive on feedback and, honestly, it makes me so happy to read them!
> 
> Thank you again for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	8. Battle is the Want of All Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove overhears Rick's plans to honour the Governor's deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day all! Welcome back, glad to have you all here again. I really hope you enjoy this chapter!

Hershel and Andrea’s voices cut in and out, partially obscuring the Governor’s words. But I’d heard enough.

“I don’t want your prison,” he had said. “That doesn’t sound safe at all. I mean, you lost your wife, another man… What good would that do me? Best you stay where I can keep my one good eye on you. I want Michonne. And I want my girl back. Turn them over and this all goes away.”

I clenched my teeth so hard it was a miracle they didn’t shatter into a million pieces. _My girl_? Since when was I “his” girl? If I hadn’t been sitting on the car bonnet next to Daryl at that moment, I probably would have launched into attack mode right then and there. Thankfully, his body was between me and the door. It gave me enough pause to think logically.

“You’ve obviously got big plans,” Rick remarked. “Like you’re the guy who’s gonna lick this thing. Bring us back from the brink. So why waste your time with a two-bit vendetta? On this one girl who decided to think for herself? Why risk it all? You could have a statue of yourself in the town square, _Governor_.” Rick’s low chuckle almost set the hairs on my arms upright. “Killing Michonne, obsessing over Jacques, it’s all sort of beneath you, don’t you think?”

“You could save your son,” was the Governor’s reply. “Save your daughter. Everyone you know. It’s your choice.”

The gap between the Governor’s statement and Rick’s response was almost enough to give me a fucking aneurysm.

“If I give you Michonne… If I hand over Jacques… How do I know you’ll keep your word that you’ll stop?”

_He wouldn’t_.

Something inside me had to believe that Rick already knew that. Even after only a few days around the man, I knew he wasn’t an idiot. You didn’t get as far as their group had with a leader that didn’t have at least an ounce of common sense.

I didn’t hear the response. Martinez said something to Sean right as the Governor’s voice filtered out through the metal door, obscuring my ability to distinguish the words. A curse escaped me, barely loud enough for even Daryl to hear.

When the Governor pulled open the door, everyone was suddenly at full attention. Daryl and I straightened from our slouched positions by the bonnet of the car, watching him as he walked past us with barely a glance in my direction. He was making a point of ignoring me, of pretending he didn’t care I was standing on the other side of this. I knew better and watched him until the very moment he climbed into their car and slammed the door shut.

Rick emerged a moment later, hand on his belt as he walked purposefully toward our own car. His face was all hard lines, eyes focused straight ahead. Not a word was exchanged between any of us as we climbed into our respective vehicles.

I shot Martinez one last, lingering look, hoping he’d see sense before things got out of hand. He gave me a small, sad smile as they pulled away from the edge of the road.

The drive back to the prison was uneventful. Rick didn’t say a word and neither did Hershel. I began to wonder whether this esteemed leader would be truthful about their exchange, if he would inform everyone that the Governor had put their lives upon the heads of Michonne and I. Was he considering it? He couldn’t truly believe the Governor would leave the prison be after all this. I refused to accept he was that stupid.

The people of Woodbury had known Philip, had trusted him. His manipulation of them was understandable. Many of them had yet to see his dark side. Rick knew only the worst of him, and I had to believe he would make his decisions accordingly.

When we arrived back at the prison, Carol and Maggie were there to open the gate. Daryl’s bike drove in first, followed closely by us. Once we had all climbed from the car, Rick called for us all to get inside.

I spotted Merle by one of the cells lining the corridor. He stood beside Michonne and straightened his back when he saw us entering the cellblock.

Rick walked down the corridor a fraction further than the rest of us, reaching into one of the open cells to retrieve a hunting rifle. He turned back to face us, looking between the gathered faces of his people with a pensive expression.

“So, I met this Governor,” he announced, sounding almost amused by the title as it rolled off his tongue. “Sat with him for quite a while.”

Merle cocked his head to the side. “Just the two of you?”

Rick nodded.

The older Dixon glanced toward me, cocking a brow. I shook my head with a deep frown, which made him scoff. He pushed off from the cell door he had been leaning on and walked across the opening before Rick, looking to his brother as he passed. “Should’ve gone when we had the chance, bro.”

He came to a stop beside me. We both looked up to Rick as he stood a step up on the staircase behind him.

“He wants the prison,” he announced.

I nodded, smiling slightly, glad he had seen through the Governor’s bullshit.

“He wants us gone… Dead. He wants us for what we did to Woodbury.”

Everyone seemed unsettled by this, shuffling in their places on the concrete floor.

“We’re going to war,” Rick said with finality, looking at each of us in turn before stepping down from the staircase and walking out of the cellblock.

The silence was almost palpable. Daryl stepped forward and looked to Merle, who looked down at me, as if questioning whether we were going to stay and fight. I gave him a tight nod, which he returned to his brother.

I was in this fight whether I was with them or not. The Governor would not allow me to live either here or there in peace. He’d want me gone, removed from the equation, so he could sleep fitfully at night. But he was fooling himself if he thought it would be that easy.

If it was war he wanted, a war he was going to get.

#

To say things were tense after that would be an understatement.

Merle, Michonne, and I continued to press Rick about the possibility of attacking first, to which his response had remained the same over the past day and a half. “It’s too risky,” he’d say. “There’s another way.”

_Yeah_, I’d think to myself. _And that “way” involved handing Michonne and I over to a man who wants to shoot us in the face. _

I kept that to myself. Hadn’t even told Michonne. It had been a difficult decision, whether to tell or not, but I’d come to the conclusion it was best that only one of us remained on edge. Ignorance enabled Michonne to more genuinely attempt to fit in here, to make friends of the people huddled in the cellblock. I couldn’t. Not when my attempts were spurred by that miniscule sense of doubt in the back of my mind, the thought that Rick couldn’t send me away if his people liked me. When they came up to me, I remained nothing but pleasant, but I was guarded. I didn’t want a tainted beginning to a friendship. These people deserved better than my unintentional manipulations.

Still, it was like I couldn’t help myself. Beth had been first, mostly because of the baby. In case you couldn’t tell quite yet, I had a soft spot for kids. Always have.

Merle had begun to frustrate me quite early in the day. He’d begun ripping into the mattresses throughout the cellblock, no doubt looking for some kind of hidden stash. At first, he’d asked me to literally be his “sniffer dog” and, once I’d refused, he’d given an indignant “who needs ya” before tearing into the damn things like the unrestrained idiot he was. I’d left him there, both unable and not in the mood to try and talk sense into him.

I walked out to the fenced-in section of the courtyard, intent on getting some fresh air, when I spotted Beth, sitting crossed legged on the concrete ground. In front of her was a box, and from the inside of that box, I could hear the senseless cooing sounds of little baby Judith. I hadn’t been game enough to approach her whilst Rick was around, unsure of how he’d react to my proximity to his baby girl, but Rick was nowhere to be seen – at least as far as I could tell – so I began a cautious approach. Carol was nearby, sitting on the steps leading up into another section of the cellblock. She watched me approach Beth with a narrowed, suspicious gaze.

“Hey,” I said softly, announcing my presence to Beth, who had been too enraptured by the book in her lap to notice my approach.

Her eyes, wide and blue, lifted from the pages and fixed on me curiously. Thin, blonde eyebrows pulled down slightly. “Hi. You’re Jack, right?”

“Jacques,” I responded with a little chuckle. “Like, the uh, detective in Pink Panther.”

She blinked up at me, tilting her head the slightest bit as her thin lips pulled down at the corners.

How old _was_ she? Did she not know Pink Panther? Was I old? My God. Twenty-four wasn’t old, right? _Right_?

I gave her a gentle shake of my head, slowly lowering myself down into a crouch beside her. “No? What about the, um… the shrimp guy from the dentist’s tank in _Finding Nemo_?”

That made her eyes widen in understanding, her mouth partially opening in an “O” shape before she clucked lightly.

“That’s just my last name, though,” I added, glancing down into the box at Judith. “Le Jacques.”

Her little baby cheeks were so round, so pink. Those eyes, light green in colour, were wide and alert, as if she were listening in on every word. She looked at me for a brief moment and I smiled down at her, which made her face break out into one of those pure baby-grins as she threw her arms about in excitement.

Jesus fuck, I would die for this child.

“What’s your first name?” Beth asked me, leaning in slightly to draw my gaze from Judith.

I glanced at her, still grinning. “Synnove.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Sin-oh-vey.” I shrugged haplessly. “It’s a Norse name. My mum, she was heavy into the whole “my ancestors were Vikings” thing.”

Beth chuckled, nodding. “Oh. It’s pretty.”

I snorted, though gave her a thankful smile as I lowered myself down out of my crouch and into a sitting position. The top of the box cut off my view of the baby inside, but I got a decent look at the side of the cardboard, where someone had written “Lil Ass Kicker” in black marker. I felt my brows scrunch as I looked at it in surprise, coughing out a laugh. Adorable.

“A baby doesn’t get to choose their own name,” I remarked, gesturing to the scrawled black letters on Judith’s box. “If I’d had a choice, I might have picked that.”

Beth laughed. It was a light sound, pure and full of heart, kind of like her singing voice. Had this been a hundred years ago, I didn’t doubt she would be the exact kind of girl that one of my kind would attempt to draw into the shadows, to lure into a ring of mushrooms deep in the silent forest. Thankfully, my kind didn’t do that as often these days, too wound up with their own bullshit to worry about the humans of their neighbouring world.

“Daryl gave it to her,” Beth informed me after a moment.

That made my brows rise slightly as a smile pulled at one side of my mouth. Of course, he had. Why was I not even remotely surprised?

Beth’s own smile began to fade after a moment as she lifted herself partially out of her crossed-legged position to look down at the baby. She reached in with a thin arm, rearranging the blankets within the box with a pursed lipped frown. “Her momma died giving birth to her,” she said softly. “Carl had to – you know. That was before we knew ‘bout Woodbury. One of the prisoners that survived here, he opened the gate and let the walkers in. We all got separated. That was when it happened.”

I gave her a sad look, nodding along with her story as she sunk back down beside me. It had been a cruel world even before the dead had begun to rise. Now, it was almost as if the universe or whatever sicko God was watching over us, purposefully put everyone in the worst position possible just to watch them squirm.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Sounds like you guys have had a run of bad luck lately.”

Beth bowed her head slightly, blue eyes focusing on her hands where they fidgeted in her lap. “It’s been rough. But we’ll get through. We always do.”

I smiled slightly at that. “I don’t doubt it.”

She glanced up at me, her sad look slowly fading into a smile. It was small and didn’t entirely reach her tired eyes, but it was nice to see, nonetheless.

Everything settled back into silence after that. Carol, who had been partway through cleaning the rifle now resting across her lap, had watched our entire exchange with a keen eye. I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use that rifle on me if I’d made even the slightest of moves indicating I meant Beth or Judith harm. Something about that woman struck me as… I don’t know. Capable? Alert?

No. I knew what it was.

She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So well hidden beneath that wool that even I had stumbled and stuttered before figuring out what she truly was. It was impressive, honestly. Those keen eyes were the only thing that betrayed her. The way they always seemed to be watching, to be turning those little cogs inside her mind, constantly alert. The tell glow of a wolfs eyes in the darkness.

When Carol caught my scrutinizing gaze, she straightened her back, her grip on the rifle slipping down slightly as if intent on pulling up and pointing it at me.

I gave her a slow, knowing grin before averting my gaze, pushing myself back up, out of my sitting position. The sound of my booted feet against the concrete was barely noticeable as I made my way back toward the cellblock door. I’d had half a thought to check in on Merle, make sure he hadn’t destroyed _every_ mattress in the cellblock, when I felt my feet come to a sudden halt.

Voices. I could hear them coming from somewhere to my right, down near the end of the cellblock where the brick wall met the beginning of the fence. They were hushed and barely discernible, but I could tell they belonged to Rick, Hershel, and Daryl. With a glance behind me at the two women to make sure neither of them were watching, I began to slink down toward the sounds of conversation. Using the shadows cast by the tall brick building, I remained partially hidden as I approached the yard where Rick, Hershel, and Daryl stood. Silent, tightly pressed against the wall before the corner, I remained out of sight as I listened in to their voices.

“It’s the only way,” Rick was saying, his voice hushed despite the fact no one other than my nosy ass was nearby to listen in. “No one else knows.”

Daryl looked perplexedly back at the man, pursing his lips slightly in thought. His grip on the strap of his crossbow was tight, as if he were using it for a sense of comfort. “You gonna tell ‘em?” he asked.

“Not till after,” Rick responded.

It didn’t take a genius to understand what they were referring to. Rick was planning to hand Michonne and I over after all. I felt a deep sense of anger rise within me, setting my chest alight. My hands curled into fists against the brickwork of the cellblock wall and I had to take a deep breath in order to restrain myself from marching out there. How the _hell _could he be so stupid? Did he honestly think this was the “only way”? That the Governor wouldn’t kill us and then immediately turn on them? Where was his common sense? His police-y instincts? Why was I the only one thinking rationally here?

“We have to do it today,” Rick continued, glancing between Daryl and Hershel with a steely-eyed resolve. “It has to be quiet.”

Daryl was partially pacing back and forth, looking out to the forest beyond the gate before returning his gaze to Rick. He chewed his bottom lip indecisively for a moment before asking, “You got a plan?”

My upper lip curled up into a snarl. Seriously? Not even Little Dixon was on my side here?

“We tell them both we need to talk,” Rick answered evenly. “Away from the others.”

Daryl shook his head. “Jacques ain’t gonna fall for that. She’s clued in, man.”

Rick’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing at Daryl as his lips pulled tautly down at the corners. “Did you tell her?”

“No,” he answered, sounding a little offended Rick would even ask. “She knows how the douchebag operates. Probably already guessed he’d asked you to hand her over.”

That made Rick pause, a hand lifting up to rub at the scruff along his jaw. He looked to be in deep thought for a moment before meeting Daryl’s gaze with an intensive look. “Would Merle do it? Get her alone? If it were the only way we’d let him stay, would he do it?”

Daryl blinked at him in surprise. It took him a long moment to answer and I wondered exactly what was going through his mind at that moment. The question looked like it disturbed him. “Naw,” he answered plainly. “He ain’t ever been like this with no one. No way he’d give her up to the Governor.”

Rick let out a frustrated sigh, turning on the spot to look out through the fence. “Alright. One at a time, then. Michonne first. Merle will help with her, at least.”

Daryl nodded slightly, though I could see the conflict in his gaze. He didn’t like this. In fact, I was pretty sure he _hated _it. The idea of giving someone up to save his own life looked as if it made him almost physically ill. He took a series of deep breaths, stepping closer to Rick with a sad look. “This ain’t us, man.”

“No,” Hershel agreed. “It isn’t.”

Rick turned so he could look at the both of them, at such an angle that he was almost directly facing me. I didn’t panic, remaining as still as I could, knowing the distance between us would make it difficult to discern my body through the shadows of the building. It helped that I was wearing all black, of course.

“We do this, we avoid a fight,” he said, sounding as if he actually believed it. “No one else dies.”

That part, he said directly to Daryl. The younger Dixon still looked troubled, as if he wished someone else would say something, give them another option, but he nodded after a moment, realizing that second choice wasn’t going to come.

“Okay,” he breathed. “I’ll talk to Merle.”

“No,” Rick said quickly. “I’ll do it.”

Daryl blinked. “I’ll go with you.”

Rick shook his head. “No. Just me.”

As Rick turned to walk away, back toward the front of the cellblock, I watched Daryl’s face contort into a troubled frown. He and Hershel shared a look, after which the old man shook his head and turned to follow Rick. That left Daryl alone, standing by himself in the empty yard, staring out through the gaps in the wire fence at the forest. Once I was sure Hershel was far enough away that he wouldn’t spot me in his peripherals, I stepped out of the shadows and silently approached the younger Dixon.

One hand lifted to grip the fence, as if he needed it to keep himself steady, the other hand still tightly holding the strap of his crossbow.

He had no idea I was there. Not until I spoke.

“It’s not going to work.”

Daryl almost jumped out of his skin, spinning around so fast one of the arrows on the end of his crossbow caught in the fence. Once he realised it was just me, he let out a huff of air through his nose and looked over his shoulder, prying the arrow free with an irritated yank and stepping away from the fence with a scowl. “Get you a bell or somethin’. _Jesus_.”

I smirked, amused despite the situation, but it faded quickly as I repeated my initial remark. “It won’t work.”

“What won’t?” he asked, though I could tell by the way he was looking at me through narrowed eyes that he already knew what I was talking about. That I’d been listening.

“Handing Michonne over to the Governor isn’t going to placate him,” I said, matter-of-factly. “Neither of us will.”

Daryl didn’t answer. His gaze dropped to the ground by his booted feet as he chewed the inside of his lower lip.

“He won’t even kill her,” I continued. “You know that, right? Not straight away. He doesn’t function like that. Revenge isn’t a bullet to the head with him. It’s more than that – it’s just as psychological as it is physical. He’ll torture her. Probably take out an eye. Maybe both, just to make a point.”

Daryl swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple move up and down as he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them, only to continue staring at the ground.

“Me? Fuck knows what he’ll do. I have an inkling it’ll involve a set of pliers. Don’t know why – just a feeling.” Whether it would be pliers, a hammer, or a knife, I knew he wouldn’t just put me on my knees and execute me. He needed to hurt me. To hurt Michonne. He needed to make us feel the pain we’d inflicted upon him, righteous or not. It was more than just a simple case of clearing the field. He needed to win. Needed to be on top. To have himself placed on a pedestal for the people of Woodbury that believed he had defeated the enemy, despite the fact, somewhere in that rotted skull of his, he knew we were an enemy he had created.

“I’m sorry,” Daryl breathed after a moment, still not meeting my eye.

I smiled softly, despite myself. He looked like a scolded child. It made my heart ache in my chest. “Don’t stress it,” I responded, waving a hand dismissively. “Rick’s just trying to minimise the bloodshed. I don’t blame him. Or you.”

That made him look up. His brow was furrowed, the muscles in his neck tensed with his deep, troubled frown. Despite the fact he said nothing, I could tell there was some sense of relief inside him. As if my acknowledgement of the lack of blame I regarded him with had set his mind somewhat at ease.

“If this is what you all think is best,” I said softly, looking out to the forest with a small frown. “I’ll go. I won’t fight it. I’ll tell Merle not to, either, and he won’t. But you and Rick both need to understand that this _will not_ amount to anything. The only thing you’ll accomplish here is the removal of two competent fighters from the board. Two that are standing on _your side_.”

Daryl breathed heavily through his nose, the skin on his forehead wrinkled as he looked back at me with a sad, helpless frown. He swallowed again before nodding, chewing the inside of his lower lip before turning to make his way up the path Rick had disappeared down.

God. How had it come to this so fast? I needed to find Merle. Convince him not to help. To at least attempt to talk some sense into Rick. Lord knew, he wouldn’t do it on his own inclination. That was the way he was. Obeying the orders, doing the dirty jobs with little question. That was how I used to be, too. How had I become the one looking at things from the outside?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weekly reminder: All comments welcome! Please and thank you.  
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I really am loving sharing this with all of you! 
> 
> Once again, thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	9. To Love the Unlovable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove attempts to convince Merle to do the right thing. It goes as you'd expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'daaaaaay! As promised, another chapter! I little shorter than usual - my bad. Still, I hope you enjoy it!

By the time I’d come back inside, Merle had destroyed the entire collection of mattresses on the first floor. He’d made it partway through the second floor, too, though someone had stopped him before he could ruin them all. I didn’t doubt Rick had likely found him, rummaging through the thin foam within the stained mattress cover for whatever source of substance he could use to take a brain-vacation. Whatever had transpired between them, Merle was no longer in the cellblock. Rick looked troubled, sitting upon one of the metal tables with Hershel, staring blankly out toward the upper window. I wondered if he were rethinking his decision.

Probably not.

When I walked past him, his gaze flicked to me and the creased in his forehead smoothed out. I met his gaze evenly as I passed, giving him a slight nod before walking past him into the corridor of cells. He could take whatever he wanted from that exchange. I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if I had accepted the likelihood I would be back with the Governor before nightfall. I didn’t. In fact, the thought of it made me almost physically ill. But I wouldn’t put these people at risk for my own sense of comfort. Not like I had for so many others beneath Philip’s reign.

Searching for Merle became more of a chore than I’d been prepared for. I passed Carol in the cellblock corridor. She gave me a pensive look, stopping mid-step and opening her mouth as if to say something before snapping it shut, having thought twice about whatever it was she’d been about to voice.

“You seen Merle?” I asked her. It was the first thing I’d ever said to her directly. She looked slightly troubled by the question.

“Yes,” Carol answered. “He’s down there.” She thrust a thumb in the direction she’d been walking from, thin lips pursed into a frown. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“I don’t,” I responded with a snorted chuckle. “He’s a lot easier to deal with when he knows you won’t take his shit.”

She gave a non-comital hum, watching me as I walked past her, toward where she had gestured.

“For the record,” I called over my shoulder. “Don’t hold back when it comes to him. He’ll see right through you, anyway.”

She didn’t respond, but I knew she’d understood what I’d meant. I didn’t need to look behind me to know she was watching me walk away.

The sound of Merle’s voice is what lead me to him, down the series of steps and into one of the machine rooms beneath the cellblock. He wasn’t alone when I arrived, standing silently enough that neither of the Dixon brothers within the room noticed me at first.

“He ain’t got the stomach for it,” Merle was saying plainly, seemingly amused. “He’s gonna buckle. You know that, right?”

Daryl nodded, slight though it was, to indicate his agreement. “If he does, he does.”

“You want him to?” Merle asked. He spotted me, then, standing at the bottom of the staircase, though made no mention of my presence to his little brother, who had his back to me.

I could see how tense his shoulders were and guessed he was likely quite uncomfortable with this conversation. As if he were toeing some kind of line even he was unsure of. As if he were still undecided upon whether his need for his brother’s approval outweighed the place he’d found and the man he had become without him.

After a moment, Daryl responded with a shrug. “Whatever he says goes.”

Merle coughed out a harsh, humourless laugh. “Man. Jacques, you wanna come in here and find out if my little brothers still got a set of balls? I mean, are they even attached anymore – and if they are, do they even belong to you?”

Daryl jerked his head to the side, looking at me over his shoulder. He barely kept his eyes on me for more than a millisecond before turning away, cheeks red.

Merle snorted again. “You used to call people like that sheep. What happened to you?”

“What happened with you and Glenn and Maggie?” Daryl snapped back.

I felt my own shoulders tense at that question, jaw clenching as the memory played itself back over and over again in my mind. Merle’s eyes turned to me as he chewed his lip.

Daryl stepped sideways, blocking off his older brother’s line of sight to me. “I ain’t askin’ her, I’m askin’ you.”

“I’ve done worse,” Merle answered.

I cringed.

“You need to grow up,” Daryl spat, his voice harsh and low. “Things are different now.”

At that, Merle snorted, taking a step to the side in order to gesture at me around his brother’s form. “Grabbing up those little love birds weren’t just me, little brother. She’s just as guilty as I am but ain’t none of you looking at _her_ like she’s the damn devil.”

That was because they didn’t know better. Merle, they’d had a series of bad experiences with. Me? I was just some girl that had come to her senses and was trying to do right by them. They knew too little about me to look at me the way some back at Woodbury did. And I hoped it remained that way.

“What’s that about, huh? Do I gotta get myself a nice set of tits and a tight ass before _I_ get any respect?”

I reached out to the open toolbox sitting atop the shelf in the wall to my left, grabbed a loose screw, and threw it at him over Daryl’s shoulder. The metal struck him in the forehead, and he stumbled back a step, lifting his hands to his face with a curse.

“God _damn_ it, woman!” he yelled.

“Watch your mouth, asshole,” I growled.

He looked at me through the gaps in his fingers, glaring. I just looked evenly back at him, brow raised, daring him to say something else.

Daryl glanced over at me, silently watching, waiting to see which one of us broke first.

It was, unsurprisingly, Merle. He looked away, dropping his hands with a grumbled huff. “Ya’ll are just doin’ the same damn thing we did, anyway,” he stated, looking back to his brother. “Snatchin’ someone up and delivering them to the Governor.”

Ah. So, he didn’t know. Rick hadn’t told him the whole story. I wasn’t surprised, of course. Daryl had made the point quite obvious that Merle wouldn’t go along with the plan if he knew I was at risk, too. I could tell he was concerned that I was about to tell him. The way Daryl partially turned his head to look at me out of the corner of his eye, the hair hanging over his forehead obscuring the look from his brother’s view, told me as much.

I didn’t say anything. There was too much of a likelihood that Merle would lose his shit if he knew, and none of us here, in this room, needed that.

“It’s different,” I said softly after a moment of silence. “Rick thinks it’s the only way. That we can’t win this fight.”

“And he’d be damn right,” Merle answered. “If we didn’t have you.”

I gave him a pointed look, warning him to watch his wording. He knew I didn’t intend on informing these people that I used to literally murder people for a living. We both had the same inkling none of them would take that knowledge too well.

“Don’t give me that fucking look, woman,” Merle hissed. “I’m right and you know it. Why the hell am I going? What we should be doin’ is sending _you_. Get you nice and close to him so you can do your thing.”

Daryl turned to the side in order to look between me and his brother, one thin brow slightly raised.

“You tell Rick that strategy?” I asked tensely.

Merle scoffed and tossed his metal hand out in a wild gesture. “You think I’m stupid?”

“That a trick question?”

“Shut up,” he growled. “I’m just sayin’. Why bother sending him Michonne, like it’ll make some kind of difference? We all know he ain’t gonna stop just ‘cause we asked nicely.” Merle looked to his brother, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Maybe you and your friends need people like me and Jacques around, huh?” he mused. “Do their dirty work for ‘em. Be the bad guys. How’s that hit you?”

Daryl just looked back at him, a miserable look in his eye as he watched the man he called brother standing before him, prepared to be the villain everyone already saw him as. After a moment, the younger Dixon let out a sigh and said, in a soft voice that almost tore my heart from my chest, “I just want my brother back.”

I felt my expression soften and my throat tighten a little. When my gaze slid across to Merle, I forced myself to take a deep breath. His expression was almost as miserable as Daryl’s, though I could see the moment he shut himself off, put up that wall between his mysterious inner workings and his outside persona.

“Damn it, man. Get out of here.”

He waved his brother off, turning away from him and continuing with his mission to rummage through the entire prison block, looking for crystal.

Daryl stood there for a moment, watching his brother’s back with a sad frown before he realised, I was watching him. Once his eyes locked onto mine, he straightened his slouched shoulders and took a deep breath, wiping the sorrowful expression from his face.

Without another word, he turned away and climbed back up those stairs, every step weighted by the world atop his shoulders.

I watched him go silently, my own mirrored sadness beginning to boil, simmering until it had morphed into anger. Once I was sure the younger Dixon was out of range, I whirled on Merle. He had straightened, having also watched his brother leave, and caught sight of my hardened expression. The way his eyes widened would have made me laugh under any other circumstance. He turned instantly, making a run to hide behind one of the machines in the centre of the room. I chased after him, just missing getting a grip on his shirt by a centimetre.

“Get back here!” I yelled, following him through the gap between the machines.

He ducked behind another one just before I could reach him. “No! You’re gonna hit me!”

“Damn right I’m gonna hit you!”

We continued this stupid dance for another minute, while Merle tried to multitask between running from me and trying to explain himself.

“It ain’t like I’m gonna change!” he called from behind the green mechanical monstrosity to my left. “No point givin’ him hope!”

“You can say that without being a dick about it!” I called. “And stop bringing me into it!”

He poked his head out from behind the machine. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just do what you damn do!”

“I’m not going after him on my own,” I snapped, leaping forward and trying to get a hold onto the sparse hairs on his head.

He ducked back behind the machine before I could, running around to the other side of it as I chased behind him. “Why the hell not?”

“Because Rick –“ I paused mid-step. “Because Rick hasn’t asked me to.”

“You’re kiddin’ me,” Merle groaned, stepping out from the machines. “You’re just jumpin’ from one damn master to another.” 

“Fuck off,” I hissed. “It’s more than that and you know it.”

“You don’t want Officer Friendly finding out your dirty little secret, that it?” Merle asked patronizingly.

“Mostly, yeah,” I admitted, though my tone was harsh. “What the hell does it matter, anyway? You know Woodbury will suspect me if he’s killed like that. How would that help us, huh? Do you think Martinez would look the other way because it’s me? Or do you think that’ll spur him into taking vengeance into his own damn hands?”

Merle let out a long breath before turning and thrusting his fist into the green metal side of the machine by his left.

“Sending in Michonne won’t help, either.” I lifted a hand to rub my face, looking to the sky in exhaustion. “Doesn’t matter what Rick thinks. Phil only made the terms to deliver us to him to make things easier for himself when he finally decides to lay waste to this place.”

Merle went silent and still. I didn’t notice for a few moments, too busy trying to calm myself, to let my shoulders relax as I breathed in and out through my nose. This entire thing was starting to stress me out.

When he spoke next, his voice was different. Softer, almost unguarded. The tonal shift surprised me so much, my attention snapped directly to him so fast I almost broke my damn neck.

“Promise me somethin’,” he said.

My face went blank as I gave him an even stare. “You know I can’t do that.”

“The hell you can’t,” he responded, taking a step toward me. “You just won’t.”

“I’m not like you. I make a promise, I have to keep it,” I answered.

“You sayin’ I don’t?” he asked, shifting slightly back into that aggressive tone of his.

“No. You know what I’m saying.”

Merle had no idea what I was. I’d never told him, never planned on it for the obvious reason of possible immediate annihilation. But he knew _something_. Though he’d never outright asked, as if voicing the question would make it all-too real, I’d given him enough information to go off without actually saying anything that would enable him to put a decent picture together.

Enhanced senses, inability to lie, the way I was bound to my word…

He knew enough. Enough to know better than to ask me for a promise.

“Just one thing,” he pressed, pushing off the machinery he’d been leaning on to stand in front of me, closer than he usually dared. “Please?”

I blinked up at him, my entire body jerking in surprise. “Did you just say “please”?”

He looked down at me without answering.

I found myself stuck on repeat. “Did you just, completely unironically, say the word “please” to me?”

“Syn…”

And now he was calling me by my first name? What the hell was going on? I looked up at him, at the earnest expression on his otherwise harsh face, and felt something odd settle at the pit of my stomach. It was an unease, an instinctual feeling of _wrongness_, as if, somewhere deep down, I knew something about this interaction wasn’t… right.

After a moment, I licked my lips and swallowed back against the strange sharp sensation in my throat. “Okay,” I breathed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Promise me you’ll look after my brother,” he said. There was no scorn beneath the words, no condescending smirk or smug little grin. It was a true, honest request.

This entire thing was too weird. “Merle…” I began, tilting my head to regard him, to really _look_ at him. “What are you going to do?”

He sniffed and straightened, plastering on a grin that I don’t think even _he_ believed as he opened his arms and made a face. “What make you think I’m gonna do anything? I’m offended you’d even ask.”

“Do not lie to me, Merle Dixon,” I hissed, reaching up to grab the neckline of his wifebeater and pulling him close to me.

The startled look in his eye faded quickly, replaced by that same odd look he’d had a moment earlier. Fear? No. Something else, something more. Resignation?

He was going to do something stupid. I just knew it. But what?

“You said you’d promise,” he said, his voice low, barely louder than a whisper.

I stiffened slightly. He was right. I had.

With my lip curled up over my teeth in a snarl, I said, “I promise to do my best to look after your brother.”

That irritatingly pleasant pang of magic shot through my body, signalling the solidification of that promise into my very core.

With a growl that was more animalistic than human, I shoved Merle backwards. He stumbled a step, slightly put off by the strength of it, reaching out to catch himself with his good hand on the corner of the machines.

“Thank you,” he said.

Every cell in my body felt as if it were on fire with the force of my anger in that moment. How dare he force me into that! Whatever the reality of his knowledge about me, he knew I wouldn’t be able to break that promise. Knew it just as well as he knew I could hear him calling out my name, even as I passed through the gate and back into the cellblock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy-hoe, I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know if you liked it, your thoughts, everything! I live for it all, to be honest. 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	10. To Hunt for the Vanished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove and Daryl head out to hunt down his dimwit of a brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day! A short one for you, today! Sorry, sorry. I'll upload the next chapter sooner as it is also shorter than usual, too.

I should have known.

I should have _fucking known_.

How could I have been so stupid? Why the hell had I left him alone? I’d been angry, sure, but that was no excuse. I knew better than to leave Merle to his own devices. Knew him well enough to have known he was up to something – something stupid. But his manipulation into forcing me to make an unbreakable promise had left me seething. I’d seen red and the vibrance of the colour had taken my attention away from that look in his eye.

When Daryl came crashing into the room, where I’d been about to tell Rick that I knew the Governor had asked for me, to tell him I would go without a fight so long as he kept Michonne safe, I’d felt my heart almost stop in my chest.

The panicked look on his face when he met my gaze made my stomach clench and my breath stutter to a halt in my throat.

“I can’t find Merle,” he said breathlessly. “Or Michonne.”

Rick and I shared a wide-eyed look before we both burst into a sprint, following behind Daryl as he led us back down to that room beneath the cellblock. One of the toolboxes had been upended and was lying on the floor. I smelt the distant scent of blood.

“Fuck,” I sighed.

“They’ve gone. He was in here,” Daryl said as he began to pace through the machinery. “Said he was looking for drugs. Said… a lot of things, actually.”

Both Rick and I looked to him.

“Like what?” Rick asked.

I glanced at Daryl. Would he tell Rick that I’d been here, that I knew?

“Said that you were gonna change your mind,” he said after only slightly too long of a pause.

Something around the corner caught my eye and I stepped toward it, past Rick, and crouched down. It was a price of fabric with a bright, if somewhat faded, pattern. Gently, I picked it up.

“It’s Michonne’s,” I stated, looking over my shoulder at the two men. “He took her.”

“Damn it!” Rick spat.

I rose to my feet, turning to face him with a snarl. “Isn’t that what you _wanted_?”

“Not alone, I didn’t!” Rick snapped back, taking half a step toward me. “We had a plan, damn it!”

“Right,” I snorted. “One that ended with both Michonne and I’s heads on a pike.”

Rick’s surprise was barely more than a blink before his anger overpowered it. “What would you have me do? Put all of my people’s lives on the line for the two of you?”

“They’re still on the line!” I screamed back. “Giving us over to Phil won’t make a fucking difference, Rick! He’ll still attack, and you’ll be left standing here, two men down for no fucking reason other than your own blind ignorance!”

“Then help us!” Rick yelled in return, his voice cracking slightly in the desperation. His next sentence was quieter, less aggressive but still forceful enough to echo through the room. “Give us another damn option.” 

“I’ll go,” I stated simply. “I’ll find Merle and I’ll drag his ass back here. And after that, I’ll go to the feed store. Just me. No one else.”

Rick’s upper lip shook as he turned his head to the side, glancing at Daryl with a frustrated huff. “That ain’t happening.”

“And why the hell not?” I asked, stepping toward him, close enough now that, when he turned back to look at me, I was barely an inch from his chest. “Wouldn’t it be better for me to be the only possible casualty?”

“He won’t come back,” Daryl cut in, before Rick could respond. He was looking between the two of us with thinly veiled concern, his voice barely loud enough to register in my brain over the thundering of my own heartbeat. “Not if he knows you’re going alone.”

“You let me handle that,” I stated, glancing at him but not turning fully away from my stand-down with Rick.

“No,” Daryl sighed. “I’ll go with you.”

That made me move. I turned toward him, brows pulled tightly down as Rick and I both said, “Hell no.”

“It ain’t a damn request,” Daryl spat back. “He’s my brother. I’m going.”

“And you’re mine,” Rick said, his voice almost twenty-times softer than it had been a moment ago. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll bring him back here,” Daryl said, glancing across to me. “We find him, I’ll take him back, you keep going.”

I looked at him evenly for a long moment. Logically, I knew Daryl could more than handle himself, that having him along with me may actually be somewhat of a help, especially when it came to convincing Merle not to be a dickhead. But somewhere, likely in the same recesses of my mind where that stupid magical bullshit lay, I felt the cold hand of hesitation holding me back.

Rick looked just as perplexed, but once I saw him nodding out the corner of my eye, I knew my own opinion on the matter was no longer of any concern.

“Alright,” he breathed, low and indecisive. “You two stick together ‘till you find them. I need you by my side when they come.”

Daryl nodded, reaching up to clasp that crossbow strap like it was his only lifeline as he began to make his way toward the exit.

I had my two knives, held within the loops of my black jeans, but nothing else. That was fine with me. A gun would be too loud, and I doubted Daryl would let me borrow that crossbow of his. To be quite honest, I could probably take out the Governor with a damn pencil if it was all I had, so long as I could get close enough. That would be the real issue. He’d have guns on that feed store, guarded like Fort fucking Knox. I’d have to get through that before I even had a chance at him.

Merle first, though. I had to save that damn fool from himself. _Again_.

#

We went on foot.

It was easy to track their path if we were walking along it, so walk along it we did. Daryl remained pensively silent at the beginning, only speaking to inform me what he saw of their trail. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I could see it just as clearly. Instead, I let him lead me along without a word, down across the road and into the encircling forest. Merle’s tracks were blurred and elongated, as were Michonne’s, indicating they’d struggled for the first few paces before they settled into clear imprints. Michonne’s physical attempts to free herself ceased quicker than I would have expected, though I didn’t doubt she’d continue the psychological jibes until the Governor literally had a gun down her throat. I liked that about her.

About ten minutes in, Merle’s tracks became more and more muddled. It was as if he’d taken the most obscure route possible in order to throw both Daryl and I off his trail. At one particular point, when two sets of footsteps went off in two different directions – the fact he’d actually taken the _time _to walk two separate ways just to spite us will never _not _amuse me – Daryl came to a sudden halt.

He stared down at the contradicting tracks, the grip on his crossbow strap so tight his knuckles were almost bone white. I could see the way the muscles on his neck and shoulders had tensed, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he tried to spot the most prominent set of footprints in the mud. A few seconds passed before he let out an irritated huff.

I stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. The touch made him jump slightly and he stepped away from the contact. I didn’t take it personally.

“We have a good idea where he’s heading, right?” I asked softly. 

Daryl nodded, though eyes remained locked on his brother’s partially faded footprint.

I looked down at it, too, a nasty feeling beginning to eat away at my stomach. Again, more tentatively this time, I reached out for his shoulder. The leather of his vest was rough against my palm, moving rapidly up and down as he lost control of his breathing.

“They went this way,” I stated, pointing to the path to the left. It was more faded, less purposeful than the other. Atop that, I could still partially smell Merle’s sweat, brushed upon the leaves of the nearby bush to my left. There was no mistaking that stink, that was for sure. “Come on.”

Daryl nodded again, though this time, when he cleared his throat, he began moving. We followed the path to the left and, sure enough, found it continued further into the forest. He’d taken more precautions this time, though. I could see it in the faded steps, the scarcely broken branches in his path. The trail was obscured, difficult enough to discern that both Daryl and I were forced to move at a somewhat slower pace just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. The walk was silent. Nary even a biter was nearby. Distant growls could be heard in the distance, sure, but they were certainly of no concern to us.

Almost fifteen minutes of complete silence had passed before Daryl spoke. “Why the hell’s he doing this?”

I took a deep breath, letting it out through my nose. I’d been thinking the same thing for quite some time.

Rick had asked Merle to help him with Michonne. He knew that obeying orders and doing what was best for the group would put him in higher favour, but he knew as well as I did that this deal was complete and utter bullshit. He believed Rick would lose his nerve. So why _would_ he do this? Why now?

_Doesn’t matter what Rick thinks. Phil only made the terms to deliver us to make things easier for himself when he finally decides to lay waste to this place._

That was what I had said mere seconds before his entire demeanour had shifted.

Deliver_ us_.

I’d said “us”.

Merle had known Rick intended to put me back at the Governor’s mercy. He’d known because I’d told him, and he’d done the only thing he could think to do – take Michonne and hope it was enough for Rick to see sense. The stupid old bastard had done this to protect me.

And I couldn’t be _angrier_ at him for it.

I didn’t tell Daryl all that, of course. Couldn’t stomach it. Instead, I turned partially toward him as I walked and gave him a sad smile. “He’s doing what he thinks is best,” I said softly. “For you. For me.”

It was true. Had to be, elsewise I’d never be able to verbalise it. Merle didn’t often think very far ahead but, when he did, he considered everything. Taking Michonne to the Governor, exposing to Rick the reality of the situation, and forcing me to promise to take care of his brother… He was doing this for Daryl just as much as he was doing it for me. If not more.

And if he pulled off an assassination on top of it? Returned home safe? He’d hope to be greeted as a hero and not the villain he believed himself to be.

Maybe this was just as much about who he _was_ as it was about Daryl and I?

The thought made some deep sense of sorrow begin to hollow out the base of my stomach and I clenched my jaw tightly in order to stop the emotion from manifesting in my expression. Daryl didn’t need to see me concerned. He had that covered enough for the both of us.

“He’s being a damn idiot,” Daryl remarked, though I could hear the emotion slightly hitching his otherwise gruff voice.

“Maybe so,” I responded, ducking beneath a low hanging branch, from which a strand of coiled dark hair hung. Michonne. “But, if we’re being honest, when is he ever not?”

Daryl glanced at me over his shoulder. It was an odd look, something like humour but hindered by the panicked concern in his eyes.

“We’ll find him,” I said after catching his gaze. My hand reached out to touch the bare skin of his bicep in an attempt to reassure him. He didn’t pull away. “Then we can both take turns kicking his ass, alright? And, because I’m such a generous motherfucker, I’ll even let you go first. Sound good?”

He gave me a tight smile at that, letting out a huff through his nose that sounded almost like a chuckle before nodding once and turning back to the murky trail of footprints ahead of us.

We continued walking until we emerged on the other side of the forest’s edge, where the trees were parted to make way for asphalt. The road was unkempt and covered in fallen leaves, stretching down and turning around a bend to our left. Daryl followed Merle’s muddied footprints a few paces before they began to fade entirely, disappearing into the asphalt. The last partial print brought Daryl to a standstill as he looked down at it, brows furrowed, bottom lip shaking slightly.

I didn’t stop. The footprints were headed off to the left, down toward the bend in the road. I might not have known the roads around here as well as a native Georgian might, but it didn’t take a genius to guess this particular road led to the feed store. We knew that was where he had been heading, after all.

“Come on,” I bid him, not turning back. “We can follow this road down to the feed store. Just stay out of sight of it when we get there.”

Daryl hesitated only a second before skipping into a jog. When he reached me, he didn’t slow, continuing his brisk jog down the road. I kicked into gear, catching up to him easily.

We were barely jogging for more than a handful of minutes before I spotted her. I grabbed Daryl’s arm and brought him to a slow stop, lifting my other hand to point down the road at the figure slowly making their way toward us.

It was Michonne.

A Merle free, unbound, pissed-off Michonne.

My heart constricted in my chest at the sight of her. Daryl didn’t even glance in my direction before charged toward the woman in the distance. I followed closely behind.

When he was close enough to her, he immediately took an aggressive stance. “Hey! Where’s my brother? You kill him?”

Michonne’s slight shake of her head was enough to bring Daryl to a halt. “He let me go,” she said simply.

I blinked, my mind racing a million miles a minute. He let her go but didn’t return with her? Why? Did he intend to go after the Governor on his own? Because I wouldn’t do it? Please, God, tell me he was not_ that_ stupid.

It took Daryl a moment longer to figure out the reality of his brother’s intentions. I’d already begun to take off into a sprint, leaving both he and Michonne behind. I had to get there before he got himself fucking killed.

Why the hell – How could he be so stupid? Why would he do this without me, without even talking to me?

He had, though, hadn’t he? He’d basically plain as day asked me to assassinate the Governor myself. I’d told him no, not without permission, and his entire body language basically replied, “_Well, I don’t need permission_”. How had I just… let that go? Ignored it, like I believed he wouldn’t do something that stupid? He had made an _entire _damn _career_ of being _stupid_.

Why had I left him alone? I shouldn’t have left him alone.

I ran faster than Daryl could even keep up with. My heart was pounding, faster even than the sounds of my booted feet hitting the grey asphalt of the road. Inside my mind was nothing more than a string of barely put together curses, as panicked as they were manic and nonsensical. By the time the feed store came into view, I barely registered the decision to step off the road. It was as if my body knew to be cautious before my brain did. It slowed me down only slightly. I cut through the underbrush, ducking beneath low-hanging branches mid-step as I all but glided through the forest, a ghost amongst the trees.

Before I reached the edge, where the woods gave way to the long grass of the untended field, my feet stuttered to a stop. I don’t know how long I’d been able to hear the sound, only that it had just registered in my brain.

Gurgled moaning, shuffling feet, coming from the field surrounding the feed store.

Biters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! :)   
As always, please let me know what you think! 
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	11. The Sorrow of Crimson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Synnove stumble into a nightmare.

Biters were everywhere.

Not in dense packs but spread out through the unkempt fields surrounding the feed store, wading mindlessly through the long grass. The sounds of their gargled moans were the only thing louder than my ragged breaths as they echoed around my head in time with my heartbeat.

I’d paused long enough that Daryl had managed to catch up to me. He jogged to a stop by my side, looking out into the field through the thin line of trees in front of us. At this proximity, I could hear his heartbeat, too. It was thundering almost louder than mine.

Without a word, he pulled his crossbow from his shoulder just as I unsheathed the two knives from my belt loops, and we both stepped forward into the field.

I walked almost in a trance. Daryl seemed to do the same.

We disposed of whatever biter came within reaching distance, barely blinking through the process as we approached the abandoned feed store. The silence that echoed within the building made my throat tighten.

The two of us made our way to the front of the building, dispatching biters as we went without barely thinking about it. Daryl had forgone the crossbow at this point, wielding his bowie knife instead as he stepped up the small series of steps at the front of the feed store. The metal and wood roller door was partially open. I reached out and grabbed Daryl’s shoulder out of instinct, pulling him back half a step so I could enter the dark room first.

He gave me an odd look and opened his mouth as if he intended to argue, but I shook my head, lifting a hand to extend a finger before my lips.

The moment I entered the room, I smelt it. Metallic and sweet, fresh enough to taste. I swallowed back against the rising trepidation taking root at the base of my throat and stepped further into the room. The glistening puddle was instantly noticeable, though it was obscured, as if something had been dragged through it.

I heard Daryl take a quick inhale when he saw it. The sound made my heart stutter in my chest, but I forced myself to ignore it and continue on. Blood trailed through the interior of the rundown shack, fading the further along it went, until it all but disappeared at the edge of the doorframe across the room from the entryway.

I made myself take a deep inhale through my nose, wishing that I’d had more time to discover more about what I was, to learn how to sort through my senses. All I could tell from the smell was that the blood was human. I couldn’t tell who it came from. Everyone had a distinct smell, I knew that, and it was supposed to translate to the blood, too. But I couldn’t sort through the different levels of the smell, couldn’t take it apart and analyse it like so many of my kind could do. It was just human blood to me. Which was almost worse than knowing with certainty to whom it belonged.

Daryl and I continued silently through the shack until we reached the opposite door. It was left ajar, parted far enough from the frame that we could both slip through without touching it.

Stepping onto the creaking wooden platform at the back of the shack, I reached out to gesture for Daryl to stop. Biters had gathered this side of the feed store, too, and some of them had turned in our direction at the sound of my booted foot against the loud, settling wood beneath me.

There was a car sitting in the middle of the field, a blue one I didn’t recognise. I knew it hadn’t been there two days ago. The door was open and biters were mingling nearby, shuffling around the car in mindless circles.

I could smell that tang of blood even stronger now. Some of it was coming from the biters, that I knew, but there was a secondary layer, a fresher, sweeter smell beneath. It belonged to than one human. That I _could _tell.

The biters that had looked toward us at the sound of creaking wood were distracted by others of their kind, turning away in order to follow behind them like undead sheep.

Gingerly, I stepped down from the platform, my footsteps silent as I continued to wade my way through the long grass. Daryl followed behind me for a few steps before fanning off to the side.

We walked through the long grass, keeping pace with one another despite our distance, until I felt a sickening sense of… _something_. Whatever it was, it stopped me dead in my tracks, so sudden and powerful it was as if I’d struck a wall.

In front of me, there lay a body. The long grass was shorter here, having been trampled by the nearby car and what I could only guess was the shuffling feed of biters. It was low enough that I could see the body, lying on its back, staring blankly up at the sky. I recognised the face. It was Sean.

But that hadn’t been what had brought me to such a sudden, dreaded halt. No.

What had stopped me was the face of the biter hovering over him.

Blood and viscera dangled from between lips, teeth moving up and down as it ground the flesh between them. His eyes were still bright and blue, but they were clouded, dead and empty of anything and everything that had made him human.

The breath in my lungs left me in a strangled gasp-like sound, my chest constricting in on itself as if someone had launched a fucking jackhammer at me.

From behind me, I heard the sound of his crossbow hit the floor as Daryl’s breath left him suddenly, as if he’d just been struck in the gut. He stumbled forward a few steps, his breath shaken, and came to an unsteady halt a few paces in front of me as the biter hovering over Sean’s body lifted its head.

“No,” Daryl whispered, pleading and broken, shaking his head in disbelief. “_No_.”

I couldn’t move. My feet were frozen in place, weighed down by my sinking heart as I watched Daryl’s shoulders begin to shake. I could hear the sobs that shook him, could feel them as if they were my own.

Merle’s corpse rose to its feet. Unsteadily, he began to move forward. Towards Daryl. Towards his brother.

My eyes stung as I tried to swallow past that sharp, painful feeling in my throat, my chest aching with the sheer effort it took to keep my sobs to myself.

Daryl didn’t bother trying. His entire body shook with the force of his cries as he watched the thing that had once been his brother stumbling toward him, growling and gurgling through the blood and flesh stuck in its teeth.

Daryl’s knife was still clutched in his hand, but he didn’t raise it. Not until Merle’s body was almost on top of him, teeth snapping together as he reached for his brothers’ neck. Daryl pushed him back with a broken, heart-shattering, “_No_!”

Merle’s corpse moved forward again.

Daryl pushed him back.

Again and again, each time more painful and harder to watch, until suddenly, Daryl exploded. He pushed Merle’s body so hard, the thing stumbled to the grassy ground, and he fell to his knees atop it, straddling the remains of his brother as he shoved the tip of the bowie knife through its chest, its neck, and finally, its head.

But he didn’t stop. He kept thrusting the knife down, again and again, his voice breaking with each cry that escaped him.

Something inside me snapped back into motion. I don’t know what and I don’t know how, but I was able to move my feet, walking forwards until I was close enough to reach out for his shoulder.

“Daryl…” My voice was hoarse. It didn’t even sound like me. “Daryl, stop.”

He didn’t.

“Daryl,” I pleaded softly. He either didn’t hear me or didn’t care.

I stepped forward, reaching out with both hands to catch his arms before he could thrust downward again. My strength thankfully counteracted the force behind his downward motion, bringing him effectively to a stop. I used my grip to lift him slightly, dragging him backward and away from his brother’s body. He let me, carrying himself a few paces back before his knees gave out.

The two of us fell to the ground, him partially in my lap with my arms half around his shoulders. His body still shook, near silent sobs rattling in his chest as he let his body go lax, leaning back into my chest, the top of his head just beneath my chin. I tightened my arms around him, letting his arms go in order to hold him in a solid embrace as he cried. His bloodied hands came up to grip my forearms so tightly his almost-non-existent nails bit into my skin.

It was as if I were fighting a war within myself. The need for my own tears to spill was almost overpowering. I struggled to keep then down, my neck and jaw tensing with the effort. In fact, I was pretty sure I was almost crushing Daryl with how hard I was squeezing him, but he didn’t seem to neither notice nor mind.

We sat like that for longer than I’ll readily admit. The biters around us were shuffling closer and closer. I waited until they were uncomfortably close before saying anything.

My voice sounded as if I’d swallowed an entire forty-dollar roll of sandpaper.

“Daryl. We have to go.”

His sobs had quietened slightly a few minutes earlier and now he just sat, staring into space, gripping onto my arm with shaking hands.

I began to unwind them, ignoring the sting from the crescent shaped cuts in my skin as I used my knee to move him slightly into an upright position. “Come on. We’ve got to move. I’m not above carrying your ass out of here.”

I began to pull my legs out fully from beneath him, pushing myself up into a standing position whilst helping him as he finally gained enough strength to rise to his own feet.

He kept his grip on me for a few seconds and I gave him as much time as I could to solidify himself before I had to push him forward. The biters were within reaching distance and I didn’t think letting him loose on them would be as cathartic for him as it would likely be for me.

Barely managing a step between the biters, I reached down to collect Daryl’s fallen crossbow before quickly dashing back to his side. I kept him steady for a few steps before his brain seemed to stutter to a start and he began to move of his own accord. Needlessly, I stayed close by him, running barely a few paces behind until we were well within the safety of the trees.

#

The anger set in quickly.

As so often happened, the hollow, sorrowful feeling in my chest began to grow sharp, until it felt as if a white-hot hand was gripping me from the inside. My blood began to boil inside my veins, growing in intensity the longer I walked behind Daryl’s hunched form.

I could tell, almost from the set of his shoulders alone, that the same thing was happening inside him. With each step, each harsh breath, his grief twisted and morphed. By the time we’d made it back to the road, the sweat on his skin was basically evaporating beneath the intensity of his anger.

I would have attempted to calm him down, had I not made a prisoner of myself with the same mindset.

The Governor had done this. I knew it as much as I knew Merle was gone. The Governor had killed him. There was no doubt. No trying to reason or think logically. It was a truth I knew almost instinctively.

And Daryl did, too.

Had he not been with me, I may have walked all the way back to Woodbury at that exact moment. I could have made it inside without being noticed. I could have found Philip easily, by sound or smell alone. All I could picture was shoving a knife through his throat or grabbing his head between my bare hands and twisting it slowly until his vertebra cracked and crumbled, rupturing the spinal column encased within. He didn’t deserve to go quickly. A day ago, I would have said differently. Given the chance, I would have ended him painlessly, even after everything. His mind had deteriorated but he had been a good man, once. He had been corrupted by grief and the undeniable draw of power. The loss of his daughter and his position over others had warped his mind beyond recognition. I understood that I was as much to blame for that as he was. The knowledge of my own place in his story of decent from good man to the ego-centric, power-hungry killer was not something I took lightly. It filled me with a deep sense of guilt, though logically I knew there had been no way for me to know that _this_ is where things would end up. Still. I should have stopped him sooner. Should have peeled back my own ego to see the reality, even if it had knocked me from my own pedestal.

Now, because of my arrogance, Merle was dead. Daryl had lost a brother. I had lost a friend.

And, if I had to take my own guilt and anger out on one person, why not let it be the man who put the bullet in my best friend's chest?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry.
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	12. The Artistry of Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Synnove and Daryl return to the prison to face the reality of what has become of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I apologise for the last chapter. It was harsh, I know. But, I can assure you, it happened the way it did for certain reasons. Please don't hate me.   
Look! More content! It's not a bribe, officer, I swear.

We arrived back at the prison an hour or so after noon.

Our walk had been quiet. Neither of us had uttered a single word, content to storm down the abandoned road in seething silence. We didn’t even enter through the back door. I don’t know if Daryl had been the one to decide or whether it had been me, but the two of us ended up before the broken gate at the front of the prison without either of us questioning it.

I drew my two knives. Daryl pulled his crossbow from his shoulder.

Without a word, we both marched up the pathway that divided the grassy field. Whenever a biter came within reaching distance, one of us dispatched of it in a primal, fevered motion. At one point, several biters came toward us at once, and I allowed myself to let go for a moment, to revel in my inherent violent nature. Two knives, five biters, and a shower of gore. The dead dropped around me in mere seconds.

Whether Daryl noticed the savagery of my knifework or not, he didn’t let on, too focused on his own march toward the gate. I returned to my place beside him, looking up the hill to see the boy, Carl, was watching us through binoculars. His voice was calling out, either for us or for his father, I couldn’t tell. My senses were clouded. Muted, almost, as if my mind were too preoccupied with sorting through my emotions to even bother interpreting stimuli.

I was given an answer a few seconds later, anyway.

Rick, Carol and Michonne appeared by the gate. In a panicked fumble, Rick unlocked the chain and pulled it free, yanking the gate to the side and allowing it to slide its entire length across. Carl quickly caught it and began sliding it back as the three adults charged out into the field.

Daryl and I were already half-way up the hill by the time they had arrived, but, I’ll admit, it was nice to have an escort the rest of the way.

Once we were back behind the gate, Daryl continued walking. His shoulders hunched and his jaw tightly clenched. He walked past the fenced walkway that lead back into the cellblock, down through the concrete courtyard between the two buildings.

Rick made a move to follow him. I reached out and grabbed the sheriff’s arm. When he turned to look at me, both confused and concerned, I shook my head.

Daryl needed a minute alone.

Rick furrowed his brows, turning his body to face me, though his gaze no longer held contempt or suspicion. “What happened?” he simply asked, his voice low, grave, as if he already knew.

I couldn’t hold eye contact, knowing how unchecked I’d allowed my emotions to grow. My gaze dropped to the floor as I shook my head, biting back against the anger and grief and whatever the hell else that feeling was, gnawing at my chest.

Rick seemed to understand, however. In an odd show of compassion, he placed his hand on the small of my back. It was gentle and warm and incredibly unexpected. But I didn’t move away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly. “I know you were close.”

I took a deep breath, looking up to the sky for a moment before meeting his gaze evenly, my emotions finally put in their usual place at the back of my mind.

He looked down at me with those crystalline blue eyes of his full of a sense of empathy I hadn’t seen for quite some time. Philip had once had eyes like that. Emotive and warm. It was nice to see such a thing again.

I gave him a grateful nod before looking back toward the corner Daryl had disappeared behind.

On my other side, Carol slid her small knife into its sheath by her hip. “I’ll go check on him.”

“Give him another minute,” I advised gently, stepping away from Rick’s warm hand so I could make my way toward the fenced in walkway toward the main entrance of the cellblock.

Carol didn’t argue, simply nodded once and remained outside whilst Rick and Michonne followed behind me.

When we reached the first door, the one that lead inside, I paused. I don’t know why but as I stood there, my hand gripping the handle, tensed in preparation for sliding it open, something inside me seemed to click in place. It was as if a murky film had been pulled away from my hazed mind, illuminating the vast expanse of knowledge I’d acquired during my time with the Governor. I knew his patterns. His plans. The entire catalogue of weapons in his collection. All of his self-appointed soldiers.

And Rick… These people… They knew the prison. Knew it inside and out.

I turned slowly to face him as he stood, looking curiously down at me from the top step of the platform that lead up to the door behind me. Michonne stood beside him, equally perplexed by the slow, sudden grin that had begun to spread across my face.

“Those tire spikes are still in the field, aren’t they?” I asked.

Michonne nodded slowly. “Yeah. Why?”

I didn’t answer, turning slowly around in place to survey the expanse of prison yard before me. My mind worked through dozens of possibilities in seconds, plotting a path, taking inventory of the weapons and instruments at the Governors disposal. I pushed past Rick and Michonne, back down the stairs and out the fenced walkway into the courtyard.

They both followed me, confused by my strange behaviour.

I turned partially to look at Rick. “You need to get the baby and your son out of here,” I said, somewhat distractedly. “Hershel and his youngest, too. Have you found the riot gear in here, yet? Never mind. I know where it’ll be. We need to replace the wooden pallets up there with metal. Solid metal. Take the doors off the solitary cells and line _this _walkway here. Keep the pallets on that walkway. It’s the first one they’ll fire at. Make sure no one can see through them, though.”

Rick kept pace with me as I walked from the gate, taking note of the line of sight for each and every access point to the cellblock.

“They’ll take out the watch towers with the launcher,” I added, turning in place to look at each of the buildings in turn. It was impossible to pin which ones they’d hit first, so it was safer to assume they’d just take them all out. “The truck with the M2 Browning will come in first. That’ll hit the tire spikes in the yard – which is good. Means it won’t be able to come into the courtyard. But they’ll have other trucks and they’ll use them to knock down this gate – so it’s best to leave it unlocked, minimise the damage for after.”

At this point, I’d come to a halt at the front gate with Michonne and Rick hot on my tail. They’d kept step with me until this point, watching me with near matching expressions that looked somewhere between surprised and intrigued.

My mental journey continued as I looked between the cellblock and the gate, surveying the area, imagining the steps the Governor would take. I stepped up toward the fenced walkway again. “We don’t fire. Don’t fight. Make it look like we’ve taken off. They’ll come in here – seven, maybe eight of them, the Governor included. He’ll need to see it for himself.”

With that, I climbed the steps and pulled the door open, revealing the small enclosed area between the two security gates. I crossed the space in two steps, pushing the silver barred door open and moving into the main area of the cellblock.

“They’ll pass through here,” I continued.

The remaining members of the group were sitting inside and turned to look up at us as I walked past them, toward the hall of cells they had made into their bedrooms. Maggie, Glenn, and Carl stood and began to follow behind Rick and Michonne, silent as I voiced my entire mental journey aloud.

“In, through here.” I stepped into the cellblock, looking at each of the cells one by one, gesturing toward them with a wild hand. “Best to leave something in them. Make it look like we were in a hurry to go. Nothing that we would come back for. Something like a discarded shirt.” From there, I ducked past the staircase in the centre of the hall and made my way toward the door at the back. The dark, shadowed corridor that extended beyond gave me all the good kinds of shivers.

I turned back to face the apparent audience I had gathered and grinned a wide, near mad grin.

“You still got those smoke grenades?”

Rick, who met my gleeful grin with a slowly brightening look of hope, nodded.

I clapped my hands together. “Fuck _oath_.”

My exclamation of excitement was met with a series of confused looks. It took me a second to realise the sheer Australian-ness of that remark before I laughed.

“It means _good_!” I looked between them, still grinning. “Come on! We can do this!”

Rick turned to look at each of his people in turn, at the excitement and hope that had begun to spread amongst them, as if my own glee had awakened something within each of them. It took him a moment before he looked back at me, a bright smile beginning to form on his face. God, it was _nice_ to see him smile like that.

“What do you want us to do?” he asked.

#

The wait was agonizing.

I kept expecting to spot a cloud of dust rising atop the trees or hear the revving of distant engines whilst we were setting up. Thankfully, though, we managed to put everything in place before any sign of them arose. Carl, Beth, Judith, and Hershel were all sent off in one of the cars, to wait out the fight by the nearby forests edge. The young son of the sheriff had been none-too-pleased by his father’s orders of exclusion. In fact, he’d begun to argue, to fight against the plan, until I’d stepped in.

I’d made sure to look at Rick before saying anything. The last thing I needed was to step on his toes as a parent. He’d given me a tired nod and I’d followed the kid into the cellblock, cornering him whilst he was in the midst of packing his backpack.

“You know, kid,” I began, my tone light as I casually leant against the metal doorframe. “Blondie and the old man are gonna need someone capable of protecting them out there. Your sister, too.”

Carl snorted in that indignant way all pre-teen children seemed to have down to an artform.

With a soft sigh, I leant partially forward in order to lower myself more to his height. “Alright, kid. I won’t bullshit you. What we’re about to do is dangerous shit. As much as you might feel like it’s unfair, your father is just doing what he thinks will keep you the safest. You and your sister are his first priority and that is not a bad fucking thing.”

Carl turned his head partially to look at me, slightly startled by my profanity.

“I’ll tell you a little secret, kiddo,” I continued. “I can’t lie. There is no physical way for me to utter an untruth. Which is why you have to believe me when I say, you need to do what your father asks, both for your safety and his.”

“_His_ safety?” Carl spat in echo.

“Yes,” I answered evenly. “Do you honestly think he’ll be one-hundred-percent in the moment against the Governor if he has to worry about you, too?”

“He doesn’t have to –“

“He does, Carl,” I cut in, pushing off the doorframe in order to stand before him. “Even if you were the greatest fighter this world had ever seen, he would still worry about you. Because you are his son and he loves you. Do you understand?” 

He paused a moment before giving me a nod, face twisted into a grimace, as if he hadn’t wanted to admit it.

I lowered myself down into a crouch. “Look, I know you want to help. And I know you don’t think running off with Hershel and Beth _is_ helping, but let me tell you something. You will be. You will keep your sister, Beth, and Hershel _safe_ by being with them. You will keep your father _safe _by being with them. And you’ll have my gratitude, because the things I will do to the Governor if I get my hands on him are not fit for the eyes of babes, understand?”

That also seemed to catch the kid off guard. He blinked once in surprise, his eyes – the same eyes as his father – widening as he realized the connotations beneath my words.

“So, you go out there and you protect those three, and I’ll stay in here and I’ll protect the rest. Sound fair?”

He watched me another moment, looking between my bloodied hands, the knives on my belt, and the crimson flecks upon my face. Something overcame him in that moment. A sense of duty and responsibility. He gave me a solid nod, grabbed his backpack and slung it purposefully over his shoulder.

I followed him out to the courtyard, watched as he pulled away from his father and climbed into the car with a huff. Okay. He may not have been happy about it, but at least he was doing it.

Glenn and Maggie had adorned the riot gear. It looked two sizes too big on both of their slender frames, but it would get the job done. Daryl and Carol both were waiting by the door of the cellblock for Rick and I. Michonne was standing guard by the back entrance, just in case the Governor decided to be smart and attempt to surround us.

Daryl’s gaze met mine when Rick and I approached. He looked me up and down before reaching into the back of his pants and pulling out a handgun. “Here,” he said.

I took it with a grateful nod, pulling the clip out, making a note of the bullet count before sliding it back in. “Alright. Carol, Rick. You two take the side corridor. Daryl and I will take the back. Whoever makes contact first out of us, pull the alarm for Maggie and Glenn to open fire. Michonne will pull back to meet with us if they come from behind. If they haven’t by the time the alarm’s gone off, she’ll come around that corner there and lay fire with the other two. We all set?”

Daryl lifted the duffle bag sitting on the ground beside him and opened it, displaying their collection of smoke grenades. Rick grabbed three of them and gave me a curt nod, pulling his rifle from his shoulder.

We separated into our respective groups and set up in our places.

And then came the wait.

Daryl and I were sitting, partially hidden around the corner of the corridor at the back of the cellblock. He had foregone the crossbow for a rifle and gripped the barrel of it, resting the stock against the concrete between his spread legs.

The assassin in me had learnt patience long ago. I sat, barely moving, staring blankly ahead and straining my ears for the sounds of commotion outside. My breaths came out in slow, controlled exhales. Remaining calm was one of the most important factors during the wait. Losing control, getting yourself too amped up too early, could mean the difference between life and death. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug, but it was in short supply and blowing it all before the fight was almost akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

Daryl let out a huff of air as he pulled the rifle up and rested it against his thighs. “The hell’s takin’ them so long?”

“He’ll be here,” I responded evenly. “He can’t risk not coming. Even if it’s just for show, he needs to be seen making an effort to ensure we’re not here.”

“Why?”

“Because…” I took a deep breath. “Well, in reality, I think it’s an ego thing. Like, he _needs _to win this. To be the hero. So, he needs to sell the idea that we’re this group of bloodthirsty savages, bent on Woodbury’s destruction. It’s the only way he’ll make a villain for his people to see him triumph over.”

“That’s messed up,” Daryl remarked.

“He is.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm the rising anger and guilt inside me. Resting the back of my head against the wall behind me, I looked to the ceiling. “I can’t believe I let it get this far.”

“You didn’t know,” Daryl said, his voice oddly soft.

“I think I did,” I responded, my voice barely louder than a whisper. Thankfully, the silence echoing through the prison enabled it to carry across the opening in the corridor to him. “I mean, I knew he was growing more… Bold, I guess. Violent, even. But he always had a reason for it – at least, he made it seem like he did. _For the good of Woodbury_. _To protect the people_. And I let myself believe that. Because I was comfortable where I was. I had a room, had people, friends. Things I apparently valued more than common human fucking decency. Or morality. Not that I’ve ever been particularly morally inclined.”

Daryl listened silently until even the echo of my voice had faded before he shuffled in place to turn and look at me. “My brother ain’t never done anything like that before in his life. Ain’t never put someone else above himself. Not until he met you.”

I could tell by the soft, gentle way he spoke that he meant that as some kind of compliment. A testament to my ability to do good. But, really, it just made me think that what had happened to him had been more of my fault than I’d originally believed.

Daryl could tell that I’d taken it the wrong way by my silence. The way I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment before looking back up at the ceiling above me. With a sigh, he rose up onto his feet, leaving the rifle leant against the wall before crossing the opening of the hall and onto my side.

“The hell are you doing?” I asked, somewhat surprised as he sunk down into a sitting position between me and the corner. He was close enough that his knee overlapped mine as we sat, partially cross-legged on the hard-concrete floor.

“What happened to Merle wasn’t your fault,” he said in response, his voice stern, almost as if he were ordering me to believe it. “That ain’t what I’m saying.”

“I know what you’re saying,” I said before letting out a sigh. “But I didn’t do shit. Your brother had the ability to not be a jackass from the get-go. He just didn’t apply it very often.”

Daryl nodded. “No one else ever thought that about my brother. Even our damn dad thought he was a lost cause.”

“I wouldn’t measure someone’s value by the view your father had of them,” I remarked.

Daryl dropped my gaze instantly. “Ain’t the point.”

“I know what the point is, Daryl,” I hissed before I could catch myself. With a deep intake of breath, I calmed my anger and looked back at him. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick.”

He let out a breath through his nose kind of like a chuckle. “Then will you just let me say my damn piece?” 

I waved him on, no longer looking at him, finding a spot on the wall across from me to stare at. It occurred to me that Daryl didn’t really seem like the kind of guy that spoke his piece all that often, especially about something close to his chest like his brother. The least I could do was listen.

“You helped him, alright?” he said after a deep breath. “More than I ever could. And that ain’t nothin’, you know? And what you’re doing now – helping us like this… You’re making up for the shit you did and let slide and that’s more than most can say.”

For a second, every instinct I had to keep myself guarded, to hold a mask over my emotions and a wall around my heart, began to crumble. I felt my brows pull down, my lips twitch slightly downward, and my eyes starting to sting and grow damp. He was right. I knew he was, somewhere deep down, or it wouldn’t have hit me so hard. Maybe that was why his brother had done what he’d done. Because he’d seen me, trying to make up for a decade worth of blood by using the skills I’d developed from that life to help protect the people that couldn’t protect themselves. And even when that had gone awry, I’d made an effort to do the right thing again and again. Could I ever make up for the lives I’d taken? No. And I’d said that to him, too. That I didn’t think I’d ever make up for it. But I’d kept trying anyway. And he’d been by my side that entire time, watching, _learning_ from my pitiful attempts to be the good guy for once.

All of that went through my mind in a split second and it was written all over my face. The guilt, the sadness, the regret. That deep, raw anger and sorrowful grief for the things I would never have, for the childhood of blood and loss, this life of death and destruction. The possibility that every time I tried to do the right thing, it somehow backfired, like a message from the universe that I’d never be good enough to be the hero of my own story.

And then, like a black hole devouring the stars, it was all pulled back into the darkness. I swallowed down everything and, with a shake of my head, slipped that mask back into place before I could shed a single tear.

I drew in a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh before turning to give Daryl a sad smile. Like I hadn’t just been on the verge of an actual emotional breakdown. If I’d been about to say something, it died on my lips when I saw the concerned look on his face. He was close enough that I could see the specks of brown in his blue eyes, even in the dim lighting.

It took me a second to compose myself, to adjust to our proximity and that soft look he was giving me.

“For the record,” I began, my voice hushed, mostly because I was pretty sure it would hitch and give away the emotional turmoil I’d shoved into that overflowing box in the back of my mind if I spoke any louder. “I might just like you guys better, anyway. You’ve got more spunk. A hotter leader.”

I gave Daryl a side-eyed grin, watching his reaction with great amusement. He blinked once, his brows rising before he snorted out a laugh and elbowed me playfully.

“_What_?” I asked with a chuckle. “You think I’m wrong?”

“I ain’t touchin’ that,” he remarked, pushing himself back up onto his feet with a grunt.

“Oh, come on,” I pushed with a barely restrained laugh. “Don’t hold it against me. Or, you know… _do_. I wouldn’t mind.”

My remarks were definitely making him uncomfortable at this point, though I could still see the amusement on his face. I opened my mouth to make another joke when a sound from off in the distance made me sit suddenly upright.

The mood in the room effectively diminished after that, as Daryl had been watching me and saw the sudden change in my body language instantly.

“What is it?” he asked, though I could tell from the hard look on his face that he already knew the answer.

“_They’re here_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thank you so much for sticking around with me and reading up to this point. Honestly, this has been a passion project of mine for so long, and I'm so, so happy so many people have responded so far. Really, you have no idea how much glee and motivation it gives me!  
So, please, take the time to comment. Not just on my works, of course, but on all the works of the people whose content you enjoy! Trust me, it'll make them smile! :)
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	13. A Melody of Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Synnove's help, the group push back against their enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day! Thank you for tuning in!   
I really hope you enjoy today's chapter!

It went almost exactly as I’d predicted.

Ruled by anger and not much else, the Governor thought little of his plan. He barrelled in through the front gate, the truck with the mounted machine gun at the head. The spikes in the yard got the tires almost immediately, sending the truck careening off the dirt path and onto the grass, where it would remain. I heard the grenade launcher go off a handful of times as they took out the watch towers. Daryl flinched with each explosion, the grip on his rifle tightening with each passing moment the M2 Browning fired upon the wooden pallets pushed up against the overpass fence.

I kept control of my breathing, gripping one of the smoke grenades in each hand.

The gate was next. I heard them crashing through it, their trucks coming to a stop in the courtyard before one of them was used to pull the door to the fenced in walkway to the cellblock’s entrance from its hinges.

Footsteps upon concrete echoed down the hallway. I straightened my back.

They made their way through the cellblock to the door down the corridor from where we stood.

Daryl and I shared a look. I gave him a confident nod.

The door was pulled open. Footsteps made their way down the hall.

With one more deep, calming breath, I pulled the safety cap from the smoke grenades and tossed them around the corner. Exclamations of surprise were drowned out by gunfire as they opened fire on the empty hallway, decorating the wall across from Daryl and I with bullet holes.

Daryl pulled the alarm whilst I waited a second longer for the smoke to fully envelop the corridor, drawing my knives and dashing around the corner.

Keeping low, I pivoted from side to side until I was close enough to make my first strike, driving one of my knives upwards into the jaw of the closest man. Beside him, someone made a sound of surprise that I silenced with one quick slash across the throat, using the momentum of that blow to pull the other knife free and spin to face my next victim. The barrel of a gun was pointed in my direction, but they were too close. I smacked it away with my forearm, easily stepping into their guard and driving my blade into their chest whilst kicking out to the side, catching another beneath the chin with my foot and sending them careening into the wall of the corridor.

A handful of them began to turn and run, trying to escape through the door they had entered through. Those that were too slow met my knife.

Daryl didn’t even fire a shot.

When the retreating group re-entered the cellblock, Carol and Rick both opened fire on them from the doorway to the side corridor.

The gunfire continued outside as Glenn and Maggie did the same, laying fire upon those left in the open. Whoever wasn’t hit by a bullet continued their retreat and I heard the trucks starting along with the Governor’s angered cries.

I made my way out of the cellblock, knowing full well I was likely covered in the blood of those I had once called friends, to find Rick and Carol descending the metal staircase in the centre.

The sounds of gunfire subsided surprisingly quick as we all ran through the front door and into the courtyard, watching as they drove off down the dirt road beyond the gate.

Maggie let out a yell of excitement, as did Glenn. Michonne met us by the gate, sword drawn but bare of blood.

“We did it!” Maggie yelled again, her voice disappearing inside.

“We should go after them,” Michonne suggested, looking to Rick.

I glanced at both of them over my shoulder, not missing their looks of mild surprise at the blood splattered across my skin. “If we don’t, he’ll just come back. Again and again.”

Carol nodded her agreement. “She’s right. He won’t stop.”

“Not ‘till we’re all dead,” Daryl put in.

Rick relented and began to turn back toward the cellblock. “Alright. Get back inside. We regroup first. Jacques, give us a rundown.”

I blinked at him. “A rundown of what? The last _Star Wars_ movie? The Silmarillion? I mean, I can do both, but a little more specification would be nice.”

Rick slowly turned back to me with a blank look. “Woodbury.”

“Rick, I need you to articulate here.”

“Blue-prints. Loose panels. Blind spots,” Rick listed with a huff.

“Okay.” I let out a breath and began to follow him inside. “Don’t know about the blue-prints and Martinez knows which panels are loose, same as me, so they’re out. As for blind spots… There are windows to the right of the gate, but they’re boarded. It’s an easy fix, but not exactly a stealthy point of entry. If someone very _gentlemanly _–” I bat my eyelids at Rick with a grin “– would, perhaps, draw fire to the left, I could get in through the window and take out the guards. Then we could just walk in the front door.”

Rick’s lips twitched ever-so-slightly up at the corners, but he quickly pursed them before nodding.

We spent the next few minutes informing everyone of our plans before gearing up and heading out.

The car was tensely silent as we drove. Rick stared pensively out the front window, his grip on the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He and his son had been talking before we’d left and, though I hadn’t heard the entirety of the conversation, I’d known it had been nothing good. It had set the sheriff even further on edge than he’d already been.

Behind me, in the back on the passenger’s side, Michonne sat near ramrod straight, her sword lying across her lap, two rifles sitting upright in the seat beside her.

I had my arm partially hanging out the window, leaning against the sill on my forearm as I stared out in front of us at Daryl’s back. He rode barely a car-length ahead of us, the wind ripping at his leather vest.

We had left almost half an hour after the Governor and his soldiers had peeled out of the prison gate and already the sun was beginning to set along the edge of the horizon. Beneath the scent of exhaust from Daryl’s bike, I could smell the diesel from the trucks mixed with the distinct odour of gunpowder. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. The M2 Browning used an obscene amount of gunpowder, therefore the fact I could still smell it lingering wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. What made me second guess the scent was the fact that, instead of dissipating or remaining constant as we followed their trail back to Woodbury… it was getting _stronger_.

When we crested the hill, I suddenly understood why.

Down the road a-ways, amongst a group of mingling biters, were the Governor’s trucks. They sat abandoned by the roadside, marred by bullet holes, some of them still running.

Daryl slowed, coming to a stop behind one of the trucks and indicating with his hand for us to do the same.

In a confused daze, I pushed open the passenger side door and climbed out of the car. The smell was almost overwhelming now. A mixture of gunpowder, gasoline, and blood. With a kind of trepidation I hadn’t felt in a long while, I cautiously walked forwards. I forced myself to thoroughly inspect each biter, every body scattered upon the road. None of the undead creatures brought about a sense of recognition. The bodies they were feasting upon did.

Daryl walked in front of me, crossbow raised as he surveyed the area with narrowed, suspicious eyes. I kept pace behind him. He, Michonne, and Rick kept the biters from me, for which I was thankful, as I walked between the abandoned vehicles with a rapidly growing sense of dread forming in the pit of my stomach.

One of the trucks were missing. The Governor’s one, his favourite.

Something sharp stuck in my throat as I took it all in. The few scattered bodies upon the road belonged to people I knew. They had been torn apart by biters.

Had a horde moved through here and caught them off guard? Is that why they had been forced to leave the trucks? Did that explain the bullet holes puncturing the bodies of the cars on either side?

Daryl’s sudden intake of breath made me jump. The way he turned, immediately looking to me, reaching out with one of his hands as if he were about to stop me from stepping forwards, made something cold settle at the base of my stomach.

He met my gaze, shoulders tense as he shook his head at my look of questioning confusion.

“What?”

“Just stay there,” he said, gaze sliding over to Rick as he jerked his head toward the roadside. The view of whatever he was gesturing to was blocked from me by one of the abandoned cars and Daryl himself.

Rick, reaching out to touch my shoulder gently as he passed, met Daryl by the front of the abandoned vehicle beside me. He, too, seemed to take in a sharp breath at the sight of whatever lay beyond.

“Oh, for fuck sake,” I hissed, making a move to step past the both of them.

Daryl closed the distance between us before I could, grabbing my shoulder with his free hand and pushing me back. “Don’t,” he advised, putting his crossbow on the ground in order to better subdue my attempts to push past him.

We wrestled like that for a brief moment until I snapped a harsh, “Just let me fucking see.”

Daryl’s brows furrowed in a deep frown as he removed his hands from my shoulders and stepped slightly back, allowing me to pass.

The three of them watched me as I stepped around the bonnet of the car, looking out into the field that lay beyond the road. At first, I didn’t even register what I was seeing. The grass was long, partially obscuring my view, but I could see the vibrant red that stood out in stark contrast against the dusty brown of the dry foliage.

Bodies. A dozen or so, scattered across the field, lying face-down as if they had been retreating from something. I didn’t need to see their faces to know who they were.

My breath left me in a pained exhale, so violently it was if someone had struck me in the gut. I suddenly felt light-headed, stumbling back a step before regaining my balance. Still, I was forced to rest my hands against my thighs, barely able to support my own weight, as I looked out over the bodies of those I had once called friends.

The smell of gunfire and blood. It made sense now.

“What the _fuck_?” I asked, breathless, not really directing the question at anyone in particular.

My chest felt as if I’d just taken a direct hit from a wrecking ball. I knew these people. I _cared_ about these people. It had been my job to protect them. I’d let them all down. I’d left them with _that man_. Why had I left Woodbury? I should have stayed. Fought Phil from the inside instead of fighting against him, and the people he had manipulated into fighting his battles for him. I was a fucking failure.

From behind me, Daryl’s presence was a warm comfort as he reached out to gently place a hand on my shoulder. He stepped up so he was standing beside me, leaning partially to the side in order catch my gaze.

I couldn’t take my eyes from the bodies. From the blood splattered across the grass and the holes in the backs of each of their heads.

Was this a fucking execution site?

“Jacques?” Daryl asked softly.

I barely heard his voice. Every sound that reached me seemed to come through some kind of tunnel.

That was likely why I hadn’t heard her.

Rick had, though. I barely even registered his call for our attention. Likely would have missed it entirely if Daryl hadn’t suddenly disappeared from my side, prompting me to turn around and follow him with my gaze.

Rick was standing beside one of the trucks, his revolver drawn and pointed at the passenger’s side window.

When I saw her face, I legitimately almost burst into tears. Somehow, I managed to swallow them back, pushing that along with the near crippling sense of guilt and sorrow down as I ran forwards.

I shoved Rick’s gun away, pushing in front of him and pulling the door of the truck open without any concern whatsoever.

Karen, bloodied and shaking, almost knocked us both over with the way she flew out of the seat and into my arms. We shared a tight, shaken embrace for a brief moment before I pulled away, looking at her scared face with wide eyes.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked, keeping my hands tightly gripped upon her upper arms.

She held my own, too, as she shook her head and swallowed back tears. “He gunned them down. All of them.”

I felt something cold clutch my heart, followed quite suddenly by a burning sensation in my veins. Unable to fully contemplate my own sorrow, I did what I usually did and allowed the emotion to fester and distort into anger. Pulling away from Karen, I allowed my hands to clench into fists with enough force that my nails drew blood from my palms.

“I’ll kill him,” I growled, lip curling up over my teeth in a snarl.

Karen, still shaken, reached out to grab my shoulder once again but I pulled away, knowing the force of my anger had likely heated my skin to the point of burning. Magic was like that, sometimes. Spurred by uncontrollable emotion.

Without turning to look at any of them, I began to walk down the road toward Woodbury. Each step was purposeful, composed. My assassin mask had well and truly snapped into place. All I could see was blood, an image of Philip lying dead by my feet. The fantasy overtook my mind, pushing everything else away until the world before me was little more than background noise.

I’d made it a decent distance before Rick caught up with me. His breath was coming out in heavy pants, as if he’d had to run in order to reach me. From behind us, I could hear the sound of Daryl’s bike starting, along with the low rumble of the car.

“Jacques!” Rick yelled. “Jacques, stop!”

I didn’t listen. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to keep moving, to follow the road, to allow nothing to get in my way.

“Synnove!”

The sound of my first name broke through the barrier encasing my mind and I stuttered slightly in my step, partially turning my head to glance at Rick over my shoulder. If he noticed the coldness of my gaze, he didn’t let on, jogging a few steps further in order to reach out and grab my arm.

He pulled me to a stop. I, against my every urge, let him.

“Syn, we do this together,” Rick stated clearly. His expression was hard, his jaw set tightly in anger, but I could see the empathy in his gaze as he looked down at me.

I looked up at him, feeling myself crumbling as the primal need for revenge warred with my emotions. The sorrow, the guilt, the grief, the anger. They all fought one another inside me, contorting my expression into a mix of indecision and pain. My body shook with the force of it all, jaw clenching and unclenching as I shook my head, trying to clear my mind, to think rationally over all the noise within.

Rick stood patiently beside me, his hand still holding a firm grip on my arm. The presence of his touch soothed me somewhat, but it wasn’t until Daryl pulled up beside me on his bike that I truly broke free of the cold-hearted assassin vying to take hold of me.

Michonne rolled to a stop beside him, looking down at me from the driver’s side window with a sad frown. In the seat behind her sat Karen, her blood-spattered face peering through the glass, eyes wet with tears.

“Together?” I echoed, partially in question, partially in disbelief.

Could I truly hold on to the hope that these people would stand beside me, fight beside me, after everything I’d done? Those people lying in the field had relied on me. How could Rick or Daryl or Michonne think that I was anything other than a failure? A killer and a failure?

Rick reached out with his other hand, holding both of my arms and lifting them to his chest. “Together,” he promised with a nod.

I realised in that moment how tense my body had been. Slowly, almost muscle-by-muscle, I felt myself loosening. When my gaze slid across to Daryl, who gave me a sad smile and a nod once our gazes met, my entire body relaxed.

“Alright,” I whispered. “Okay. But no one else gets hurt. Just him.”

Rick nodded. “No one else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading, guys. As usual, I bid thee leave remarks upon thine wall.   
Pretty please.   
I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! :)
> 
> Thanks again for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	14. At the Gates of Hades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of Part One, Synnove and the group arrive at Woodbury to finally put an end to the war brewing between both communities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! Please see the end of the chapter for an announcement! :)
> 
> Hope ya'll enjoy!

When we arrived at the gates of Woodbury, night had fallen.

We had parked the cars up the road, out of sight, and made the rest of the journey on foot. As per the plan, I separated from the group once we were within throwing distance of the gate, skulking off into the shadows to the right. I got as close as I could without being spotted and waited for Rick to fire off half a round into the gate.

Once he had drawn the attention of the two guards, I stalked forwards, keeping low and silent until I reached the building where the gate met the solid brick wall. It was easy to climb. I’d done it a dozen times before.

Neither of the two people lying prone atop the guard walk that ran along the top of the gate noticed me. It took me a second to realize I didn’t recognise either of them, meaning my sheer presence alone wouldn’t be enough to subdue them.

They continued to fire into the darkness, toward the upturned car Rick and Daryl were hiding behind.

“G’day mates,” I greeted loudly.

Both the burly man and athletically slender woman jolted at the suddenness of my voice. The girl was the first on her feet, swinging her rifle toward me. I stepped into her guard as quick as lightning, grabbing the gun by the barrel and twisting it to the side.

The woman let out a hiss of pain as her finger twisted inside the trigger guard, forcing her to pull her hand back. With her grip on the rifle loosened, I was easily able to yank it from her grip, turning in place to make a move against the man.

He was tall with wide-set shoulders and thickly coiled arms, but his size made him slow. By the time I’d disarmed the woman, he’d only just managed to get onto his feet.

I used the butt of the gun to strike him in the chest, winding him easily before smoothly reaching to pull my knife free from my belt. The motion was so quick and elegant that the woman didn’t even have time to register what I was doing until my arm was mid-swing.

She sucked in a breath of fear as I slashed the knife toward the man.

The strap of his rifle frayed and snapped. Having not expected the rifle’s full weight to suddenly be in his hand, the man’s grip faltered slightly. I lifted my leg and kicked at the man’s forearm, jarring his loose hold on the gun enough that it clattered to the floor.

The woman, overcoming her slight shock, stepped forward in an attempt to subdue me. I felt her coming and stepped backwards, ducking beneath her arm before straightening behind her. The rifle in my grip fell to the floor, enabling me to reach out and grab her, lifting my other hand to hold my knife to her throat.

The man’s eyes went wide, his mouth opening in shock as he raised his hands.

“No, no,” he pleaded. “Please. Take me, not her. Please.”

I watched him silently for a moment, taking in the pure fear on his face as his gaze slipped between my face and the knife I was gently pressing against the dark skin of the woman’s throat.

“Relax, big boy,” I said after a minute, letting my grip on the woman fall lax. Purposefully, I stepped away from her, sheathing the knife. “Just needed to get your attention.”

The woman took a quick step forward to stand beside him, her hand reaching up to the unmarred skin of her throat.

From the road bellow, Rick’s voice called up, “Open the gate!”

The man seemed to do a double-take when he looked down at Rick, his eyes going wide. Beside him, the girl’s face contorted into a scowl.

“We’re not letting you in here,” she said pointedly.

“Fine,” I sighed. “I will.”

I saw her eyes snap down to the discarded rifle by her feet mere seconds before she actually made a move for it. My knife was out of its sheath, flying through the air, and embedding itself in the wood between the grip and trigger guard before her hand could even reach it. She jerked back.

“We aren’t here to fight you,” I insisted.

“Tyreese! Sasha!” Karen’s voice called from the darkness.

The man, Tyreese, jerked his entire body toward the sound as he called out, equally confused as he was concerned, “Karen? Karen, are you okay?”

She stepped out from the shadows of the trees and into the light. “I’m fine!”

“Where’s the Governor?” Tyreese asked with a suspicious glance toward me.

“He fired on everyone,” Karen replied, a hitch in her voice. “He killed them all.”

Tyreese and Sasha shared a troubled glance before looking back down at her, gesturing a hand toward Rick. “Why are you with them?” he asked.

“They saved me,” Karen replied.

Sasha turned to look at me, her brows furrowed, thick lips turned down at the corners. “Who are you – why are you here?”

“Synnove,” I answered. Their instant, somewhat shocked reaction told me that they had definitely heard my name before. “We were on our way to finish this when we found Karen and the others.”

“They… He… He killed them all?” Tyreese asked, his voice shaken slightly as he gave me a heart-wrenched look.

I nodded once, swallowing against the sharp sensation in my throat.

With a deep sigh, Tyreese looked to the woman standing beside him and pursed his lips. Seemingly making up his mind, he turned and began to climb down the haphazardly built ladder. Sasha followed him. Once they were both on the ground, I jumped down, landing on the asphalt beside him with nary a sound.

Together, we pulled open the gate.

Rick approached purposefully, looking intensely up at Tyreese, his lips in a tight line.

Tyreese was almost comically larger than Rick, which would have made me laugh had the circumstances been different.

“Karen told us Andrea hopped the fence, made a break for the prison,” Rick informed them. “She never made it.”

Both Sasha and Tyreese’s expressions fell. They knew what that meant. The Governor had gotten to her first.

“She might still be here,” Rick stated, giving both guards pointed looks.

I felt something cold spread through my vines as both Sasha and Tyreese shared a troubled glance. Neither of them knew where to even begin looking for her.

But I did. And the realization made my stomach twist painfully.

“Follow me,” I breathed, grabbing Rick by the sleeve of his shirt and tugging him forwards.

I led them down to the cells with my heart lodged in my throat. The distant tang of copper lingered on my tongue, the smell growing stronger with each step toward the building in which we had always housed our prisoners. When we reached the hall, the stench of both death and blood was almost overwhelming.

“This is where he’d keep her,” I stated with a hoarse voice, gesturing down the hallway toward the ominous metal door at its end.

Rick made a move to step past me and I reached out to grab his shoulder. He turned his head jerkily, giving me an agitated look before his expression softened slightly at the sight of my guilty frown.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I breathed.

He gave me a nod of acknowledgement before pulling away.

Michonne followed behind him, her hand gripping the handle of her blade as if she, too, had the sense she may need to use it.

Daryl lingered in the entrance of the hall, watching me as I stood there in indecision. Did I want to know what lay behind that door? Probably not. But I didn’t want them to face it alone. With a curt nod to the man beside me, I began to follow Rick and Michonne down the hall.

Rick tried to push the door open only to find the lock securely in place. He called out Andrea’s name and was met with a breathy, weak response from the other side. Spurred on by concern, he attempted to throw his body against the metal door, willing it to open beneath his weight. It held strong for a few moments before finally crumbling from the assault, bursting open and filling the hallway with an overwhelming stench of blood and death.

Rick stepped inside, followed shortly by Michonne. The looks on their faces solidified the idea that what lay beyond was nothing but bad news.

Daryl stepped in next. He let out a sigh through his nose at the sight before him.

Next, I slowly passed through the doorway.

Andrea sat, partially sunken to the floor, against the metallic wall beside the doorway. Her pale skin was almost grey, coated in a thick sheen of sweat. On her shoulder was a wide, gaping circular wound, spilling blood down the front of her shirt. I had lived in this world long enough to know a biter’s mark when I saw one.

While Rick, Michonne, and Daryl stood around her, I found my gaze being drawn across the room to the second body. Slowly, I stepped over to it, coming to a stop beside it with a sickening feeling beginning to well in my stomach.

Crouching down, I reached out to touch the corpse’s shoulder and began to turn him over. I needn’t have bothered. I already knew who it was. Looking down at his slackened expression was still a punch to the gut.

“Goddamn it, Milton,” I whispered to myself.

“He turned on him,” Andrea breathed from the other side of the wall.

I turned in place to look at her with a frown.

“He tried to help me,” she wheezed.

My frown slowly turned into a sad smile as I looked back at her, nodding. Figures the moment Milton did something out of his comfort zone, it’d get the poor guy killed. I turned him over onto his back, putting his arms over his chest as some kind of sign of respect, before straightening and coming to stand beside the others.

Tyreese and Sasha were both lingering in the doorway. Their matching expressions of horror would have been comical in a less devastating circumstance.

The group shared their final goodbyes with Andrea. It was heart-wrenching to say the least. I barely knew the woman and even I felt close to tears.

When she looked over to me, I gave her an appreciate nod. “Sucks to be the good guy sometimes, don’t it?” I asked with a sad grin. The remark made her chuckle which, in turn, made her wince.

Michonne’s goodbye was the worst. My jaw clenched so hard it began to ache. I was trying too hard to hold back the sorrow. But once all was said, Rick gave her a gun and we left her to do what needed to be done.

The sound of the gunshot made everyone flinch. Even me.

Later that day, I stood upon the steps of the town hall with Tyreese, Karen, and Sasha beside me. We told the people the truth of the Governor’s actions, of the stories he had spun in order to make us seem like the villains. Some had accepted our words as fact whilst others had argued that I was just trying to save face.

Karen’s assurances were the only thing that kept them from revolting against me and soon, when the sun reached the centre of the sky, many of the people of Woodbury accepted me once again as their friend and comrade.

Rick came to stand beside me, offering the people of Woodbury sanctuary at the prison. He wasn’t shy about describing the difficulties. Starting anew would be a lot of work but, with all of us, it was entirely possible to begin a community that valued its people more than its power.

Almost everyone agreed. Those who didn’t decided to leave of their own volition. We didn’t stop them.

I began yelling out orders for Nelson and Margarette to fetch the buses from the Governor’s yard and for the rest of the people to gather their belongings. We couldn’t be sure when or if the Governor would even return, so it was best to act quickly. I stressed that fact as calmly as I could. Everyone obeyed without question.

Once I was confident everyone was in motion, I led Daryl and Rick to the supply rooms. We still had a dozen or so seeds that had yet to be planted, a whole shelf full of canned goods, and whatever weaponry the Governor had deigned to leave behind. Daryl began packing the stuff up in boxes.

I grabbed Rick by the shoulder and jerked my head toward the second door. It led to a small enclosed pantry, within which I knew lay something that would be beneficial to Rick in particular.

He walked beside me over toward the door and I pulled it open with a wide grin, watching his expression as he saw what lay within.

The pure, elated look of joy on his face was enough to warm my chest, to set the sorrow toiling within aside for a welcomed moment.

“Our youngest was still dependant on this when she and her mother first arrived,” I explained, looking into the cupboard with a smile. “Believe it or not, most of it was found in the town itself. Didn’t even need to go out venturing for it. Lucky for you.”

Rick turned away from the shelf of baby formula and gave me a wide grin. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The day passed us by quickly. Everyone was almost ready to go before the sun had dipped beneath the tree line.

I was standing by the school bus with Daryl, making sure all the kids were getting on safely, when the thing I had been dreading the most happened.

Two girls, pale with curly red hair and wide, innocent eyes, came bounding up to me. Their faces were identical down to the last freckle across their tiny, button noses. The Helena twins had taken to me the moment we’d met, when their mother had first joined the guard alongside me. Since her arrival, we had spent a lot of time together, to the point where the twins had begun jokingly referring to me as “Aunty Syn”. The moment I saw them all but skipping up to me, their twin ponytails bouncing along, my heart froze mid-beat.

My entire body went cold. I could barely move by the time they reached me, both throwing themselves at me with such force I let out a grunt and had to step back in order to keep my balance. Their arms wrapped around my waist as they both let out a series of sweet giggles.

“We knew you’d come back,” Tayra said chirpily.

“Mommy said you wouldn’t, but we knew,” said Ava.

Slowly, my entire body fighting against the urge to break down right then and there, I wrapped my arms around them. My chest was so tight I was struggling to breathe, my jaw clenching and unclenching with the effort it was taking not to cry.

How the fuck was I supposed to tell these girls… These sweet, innocent girls that their mother was dead? That she’d been gunned down by the very man that had promised them safety?

My mask was beginning to slip. I couldn’t keep it in place. Face contorting into a miserable frown, I looked beside me with a desperate look at Daryl.

Understanding dawned on his face instantly. But what could he do?

The girls pulled away from me and I, against all odds, managed to slip that mask straight back into place with enough effort to tear a figurative muscle. Neither of them sensed anything was wrong.

“Are we all going to the prison now?” Tayra asked with a grin. “I’ve never been to a prison before.”

I lowered myself down into a crouch and touched both of their shoulders on opposite sides. “Yeah. We are. You excited?”

Both girls nodded gleefully.

I gave them what even I admit was a strained smile. They were ignorant to the reality that awaited them. Did I have the willpower to be the one to pull the veil of innocence from their eyes?

“Good. You got everything?” I asked.

They shared a thoughtful look before nodding at me with a grin. “Miss Silvia packed our bags for us,” Ava answered.

“Did she remember Mr and Mrs Piggy?” I asked them with a forced look of humorously exaggerated mock doubt, referring to the identical stuffed pigs they never slept without.

Tayra giggled. “Of course, she did!”

I nodded and rose to my feet. “That’s good. Are you ready to go?”

That was when things took a turn for the worst. Ava and Tayra shared another look in the way I guessed all twins did. It was a look that carried an entire conversation. When they looked back at me, their demeanour had shifted slightly. They seemed almost shy.

“We’re waiting for Mommy,” Tayra said.

“We don’t want to go without her,” Ava added.

I had hoped beyond hope that they just wouldn’t bring it up. A stupid hope, I know. Really, it was cruel of me to stretch this on. Selfish, even. But I’d needed a minute to gather the balls to do it.

With an unrestrained miserable look at Daryl, I lowered myself back down into a crouch and reached out to take both of their tiny hands in my own.

Daryl, understanding my need to do this alone, took a deep breath through his nose before walking away, toward where Rick and Michonne were standing by the other bus.

“Listen girls,” I began, fighting to keep my tone clear and crisp. The sorrow beneath my voice was unmistakeable, however, and both girls looked troubled as they glanced down at our joined hands. “Your mum… uh… Your mother, she… She’s gone, girls. I’m sorry.”

They blinked up at me in confusion. Both of them had already begun to tear up, their green eyes shining as they shook their heads in almost perfect unison. They pulled their hands from mine and stepped back.

“No – No, she’s not!” Tayra yelled angrily.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Ava, unlike her sister, was timid and confused. “Gone where?”

Fucking_ God_. I was struggling to keep my own emotions in check, to keep my own eyes clear and my voice unhitched. “Hey, hey,” I said softly, reaching back out to take their hands again. Ava let me. Tayra didn’t. “I know it’s difficult to understand, but your mother was doing what she thought best to keep you girls safe. But the Governor… The Governor was a bad man and he hurt everyone. Everyone that was with him. Including your mother.”

“The Governor?” Ava asked, her pale auburn brows furrowing. “But he cares about us. He’s our friend.”

I shook my head. “He was, once. Mine, too. But he changed.”

Tayra’s tears had begun to slip free of her wide eyes, trickling down her reddened cheeks as she glared at me with a scowl. “You were supposed to protect us!”

My throat closed up. I was forced to squeeze my eyes shut in order to force back the tears that had begun to gather. “I know,” I said, my voice breaking on the last word. “I know, girls. I tried.”

“You didn’t try!” Tayra yelled, her voice now carrying across the street. People turned in our direction.

Ava was still standing there, holding my hands, as she began to sob herself. With her sister screaming at me in the background, she stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I held her tightly to my chest whilst her sister watched, disgusted.

“Don’t hug her! It’s her fault!”

“Shhh,” I whispered to Ava. My gaze remained on Tayra as I opened one of my arms, inviting her in.

It took her a minute. She had to work through the anger first, I think. I could relate to that. But soon, almost screaming in defeat, she leapt forward and into my embrace.

We hugged for a good few minutes as I struggled to keep my own emotions swallowed down. I doubted my own breakdown would do them any good.

After a little while, Silvia stepped out of the bus where she had been organising the other children, and came to stand beside us with a sad look. I glanced up to her at her arrival, nodding as I pulled away from the twins.

“Alright, girls,” I breathed softly. “Time to go. I’ll meet you there, okay?”

They both nodded. Tears still streaked down their cheeks, but they had exhausted themselves with their own sobs. Tiredly, they staggered over to Silvia, who helped them up onto the bus with one final, thankful look in my direction.

I waited a few moments until the doors of the bus closed before making my way over to where Rick, Daryl, and Michonne still stood. They were helping some of the townsfolk load their belongings into the storage section beneath the bus.

Daryl noticed me first. He stepped around Rick with a concerned look. “You alright?”

“Absolutely not,” I answered with a forced grin. “When are leaving?”

“In about five minutes,” Rick answered. “Ready?”

I looked down the road. Memories played across my vision as I took in sight before me. The first time I’d seen it, overrun with biters in the dark, dreary light of dusk. Then, a few weeks later, the first time I’d looked down this street and seen nothing but the living. The feeling I’d had when I realized we’d actually done it. Made a place. A home. I had a vivid memory of Merle and Martinez running down the street, chasing a football that had gone astray from a group of young kids. They’d fought over who would get it first.

Merle had fallen flat on his face, which had tripped Martinez, who had rolled to a stop just a few feet away from where the ball had come to rest.

A small, bittersweet smile stretched across my face as I looked back to Daryl and Rick. “You guys go. There’s something I need to do.”

Both Rick and Daryl shared a concerned look before turning back to me with near matching frowns.

“You sure?” Rick asked, his forehead creased in worry. “I don’t like leaving you here alone.”

Daryl didn’t even give me a chance to respond. He stepped forward, glancing at Rick with a nod, before declaring, “I’ll stay.”

Rick nodded and looked to me. “Don’t be long. We’ll leave one of the cars behind for you.”

I nodded my appreciation and stood by as he climbed onto the bus and into the driver’s seat. Daryl and I stood side-by-side and watched the buses pull out of the front gate and onto the road beyond. Three of the cars followed closely behind.

The silence that settled once they were out of sight was almost deafening. I turned in place to look back down that long road, at the line of shops and houses that made up the majority of the place I had, until recently, called home. A sharp sensation began to build in my chest.

Without a word, I began to walk down the street, my hands shoved into the pockets of my jeans.

Daryl followed along behind me, respectively silent.

When we reached my apartment building, I stood by the front doors for a good moment before gathering the will to actually go inside. I’d lived on the top floor, in the apartment beside Merle’s and above Martinez’s. As I walked up the stairs, looking down each hallway, I felt myself hollowing out. Almost every door had been left ajar, giving me a decent look inside most of the apartments. They were barren, stripped of personal belongings, and had an almost ghostly air about them. Logically, I knew people had been through here no more than half an hour ago, but it felt as if this place had been abandoned for years.

When we reached the top floor, I found myself hesitating at the beginning of the hallway. My initial thought was to gather my own belongings in solitude, so that I’d have a spare moment to myself in order to finally allow the tidal wave of emotions welling within me to spill over. But now, I wasn’t alone. Though I doubted Daryl would judge me if I broke down there and then, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of exposing myself so vulnerably to him quite yet.

Walking into my own apartment after all this time would be hard enough, but the second idea that filtered in through my foggy mind was even harder. Yet, I knew, deep down, it was what needed to be done. I could deal with losing the majority of my shit. It was only stuff, after all.

Taking in a deep breath, I began walking down the desolate hallway with my heart in my throat. Passing by my own door, I came to a stop in front of Merle’s apartment. He’d never locked his damn door.

It swung open easily, exposing the room beyond before us in all it’s plain-ass glory. You wouldn’t really expect it of Merle, but he kept the place almost pristinely tidy. Even folded his damn shirts. I used to make fun of him for it, though I knew it was a habit he’d likely picked up in the army.

Remaining in the doorway a beat, I turned my head to look at Daryl with a sad smile. Without a word, I jerked my head toward the interior of the room. Understanding dawned on the young Dixon’s face, his mouth twitching downward in a sad frown. Taking in a deep breath through his nose, he nodded at me and stepped past, into the room.

I followed, gently closing the door behind me.

“Damn neat-freak,” Daryl remarked under his breath as he turned in place, taking in the room with a snort.

I let out a soft laugh, walking over to the haphazardly built bookcase against the right wall. We’d kept a stash of Russel’s moonshine in the cabinet beneath the last shelf, along with a handful of what Merle referred to as “keepsakes”. He’d told me a story about each one, and though I was almost eighty-seven percent certain half of them had been utter bullshit, there was one hiding in there that I knew he’d spoken honestly about.

As Daryl moved further into the room, lifting the lid of the trunk at the end of the bed, I lowered myself down into a crouch and pulled open the small cupboard door beneath the bookcase.

The box of bottles sat at the forefront of the shelf. There were roughly six bottles left, all mostly full of the clear liquid, with their lids firmly latched. I pulled them out with a sad smile, placing them on the carpeted ground beside me. Behind that box was another, smaller cardboard rectangle. Gingerly, I pulled it to the front of the shelf.

Inside, there were enough knick-knacks to make the Little Mermaid squeal with joy. A shitty, metal cigarette holder with a painted image of naked woman on the front; an old, rusted bullet, supposedly from World War Two; exactly two-dollars-thirty-five in coins; a belt buckle depicting a skeleton riding on a motorcycle; and a small, closed jewellery box.

I took out the plain box, holding it in the palm of my hand for a moment. The box had belonged to the previous occupant of my apartment. I’d kept it in my possession until Merle had shown up. I still remembered the day I’d given it to him, mockingly getting down on one knee and opening the empty box with a declaration of, “Would you do me the honour of fucking right off out of my life forever?”

He’d given me a mock-gasp and responded in a high, mockingly feminine voice, “Yes, yes. A thousand times yes.”

The memory made the corners of my sad smile twitch. My eyes began to sting with the urge to cry. I swallowed back against the sharp sensation in my throat and rose up to my feet, taking a deep breath before turning to face Daryl. He was partway through rummaging around in Merle’s old trunk, pulling out his shirts and discarded books and tossing them to the side without much thought.

I moved toward him, gripping the box in my hand tightly.

He noticed my approach and straightened, his gaze going from my frowning face to the box in my hand and back with a curious expression. “What’s that?”

I opened my mouth to answer, only to find no words would come. Looking back down at the box, I cleared my throat and let out a shaken breath before trying again. “It wouldn’t feel right leaving these here. I think he would’ve liked you to have them.”

I offered the small, black box to him with a sad smile.

He kept his gaze on me for a moment, furrowing his brows in confusion before taking it from me and looking down at it with indecisive confusion. The moment he opened it, I felt the change in the air instantly. His expression fell for a moment, contorting into a visage of complete and utter sorrow before a slow, sad smile spread across his face. Holding the box in one hand, he reached up and pulled the dog-tags from the small cushioned interior.

“He, uh… He wore them all the time at the start,” I explained, my voice shaky and slightly hitched. “They kept getting grabbed by biters when we were outside the fence, so I convinced the idiot to take them off whenever we went on runs.” 

The sound Daryl made was halfway between a laugh and a sob. Honestly, I felt that sound in my damn soul. With a sniffle, he shook his head and lowered the dog-tags back into the box, handing it back to me without closing the lid. I took it with a confused frown in his direction.

He just shook his head again, eyes downcast, mouth pulled in a taut line.

“Daryl…” I breathed, but he turned away and walked over to the window, shoulders teased, head down.

My lips pouted in a frown as I stood there, looking at his back with my brows furrowed. After a silent moment, I looked down at the box in my hand, at the silver chain and small pieces of metal, the only things that remained of his brother… and slowly lifted them out. I placed the box on top of the junk inside the trunk before walking forwards, coming to a stop behind Daryl’s stiff back.

“I’m going to put these on you,” I said matter-of-factly. “And if you move, I might just choke you with them.”

Daryl jerked around to face me, his eyes wide and full of misery as he shook his head again. “I can’t wear them. They ain’t mine.”

“The hell you can’t,” I responded, keeping eye contact with him as I lifted the chain up, over his head.

To give him credit, he didn’t move. Just watched me with his brows furrowed as I lowered the dog-tags, securing the chain behind his neck with a small, sad smile. We were standing so close I could feel the warmth of his body, hear the way his heart-beat thundered rapidly inside his chest.

“He loved you, you know,” I said softly. “In his own weird, entirely fucked up way.”

Daryl’s miserable expression faded for a brief moment as he snorted a breathy chuckle. Surprisingly, he didn’t dispute me on it like I’d half expected him to. Instead, he looked down at the dog-tags that now dangled from around his neck and swallowed back against his emotions. Gently, he lifted a hand and grabbed the tags, pursing his lips in an effort to stop them from quivering.

I took half a step back in order to give him some room.

“I miss him,” he said after a moment, his voice soft, gruff and shaky.

My heart squeezed painfully in my chest at the admission and I, myself, had to swallow back against the sharp emotion stuck in my throat. “I know,” I breathed. “Me, too.”

His gaze lifted from the tags to meet mine, almost as if he hadn’t quite believed me. But the fact that I’d been able to say it at all told me it was true. I really would miss the problematic little fucker. It hadn’t really hit me until that moment. The reality of how much I’d actually cared about the man. He’d been a horrible person but somehow, he’d managed to wiggle his way into my heart more than I cared to admit.

Daryl seemed to see that realisation manifest on my face, and he dropped the tags to his chest, reaching out for me with one hand. His fingers curled around my tattooed upper arm and he pulled me gently toward him. I stepped forward, allowing him to wrap his arms around me in a tight hug.

I went stiff, unsure how I felt about the sudden, unexpected embrace. Truthfully, I think I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t need it. That I could handle the grief on my own. That I didn’t enjoy the feel of his hard, coiled arms around me.

Of course, that lasted all of three seconds before I all but collapsed into him. My own arms wound tightly around his waist and I buried my face into his shoulder. We stood together like that for a while, tightly holding one another, until I sensed the room beginning to darken. The sun was setting beneath the rooftops across the road, casting a long shadow into the windows of my apartment building.

With a sniffle, I allowed my arms to unwind from around him and stepped back. Neither of us made eye contact as we separated, each making some kind of excuse not to look at one another. I turned back toward the bookshelf, making a half-hearted remark about bringing the moonshine back to the prison, whilst he lifted a hand and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, declaring he’d go downstairs to start the car.

I tried not to let myself focus on his lingering scent after he’d left the room. Tried to pretend that each time I thought back to that moment, my heart didn’t try to leap out of my chest.

Blowing out a long breath, I bent down and lifted the box of moonshine. Whilst walking past my own apartment, I paused and glanced at the door. Did I dare?

No. No way. I’d had much too many emotional moments today. I didn’t doubt another one would just push my already unstable mind that one step too far.

True to his word, Daryl was waiting for me by the front gate with a running car. I loaded the moonshine into the trunk and slammed it shut before climbing wordlessly into the passenger side.

When Daryl was securely in the driver’s seat, he turned his head to glance at me. “Ready?” he asked.

I shook my head, glancing into the side mirror with a frown. “Not really.”

Daryl waited for my go ahead. It took me a second to mentally say my goodbyes to the place before I turned to look at him with a sad smile.

“Alright. Get me the fuck out of here.”

* * *

**E N D O F P A R T O N E**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~ ANNOUNCEMENT ~~~  
I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! As you can see, it is the end of Part One of The Monsters Among Us. I will continue posting chapters here, however I will be limiting them to one a week instead of two as it is entering the holiday period and I am busy, busy, busy :(
> 
> As always, comments are much appreciated! I love hearing from each and every one of you :)
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	15. A Council to Council the Counciled Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weeks have passed since Woodbury and the Prison joined forces to become one community and the question of leadership roles has begun to raise it's dangerous head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola, lovelies! Welcome to Part Two of "The Monsters Among Us"! This chapter begins sometime in the limbo between Season 3 and Season 4!
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)

**~~ BEGINNING OF PART TWO ~~**

* * *

I stood with Rick upon the fields, looking out over the impressive expanse of crops with a soft smile. He looked proudly down at the row of corn stalks, rising almost two feet from the dirt, and let out a relaxed sigh.

It had been a strenuous few weeks. The first couple of days after Woodbury had been reduced to a pile of ashes had been such a haze of stress and panic that I barely even remembered it. We had all made a mad scramble to clear out enough room for the sudden influx of people, ridding D-Block of biters, going on run after run to ensure we had enough food and supplies to support a community this size. Daryl and I had spent more time outside of the fences than within them. If we weren’t on a run, then we were out on a hunt; if we weren’t on a hunt, then we were on watch; if we weren’t on watch, we were out in the forests, looking for any possible sign of the Governor’s whereabouts. The two of us barely had an hour alone these days.

Not that I entirely minded. His company was oddly comforting, almost homely in a way I was not at all willing to either admit or attempt to understand.

Now that everything had calmed down somewhat, we had been less stressed out. Our days had become more structured, less chaotic. We had an actual schedule for watches, which made choosing which day to go out on a hunt much, much easier, and gave us a little more free time – most of which Daryl and I usually… spent with each other, anyway.

Today, however, I had chosen to come out an enjoy the mid-springtime sun with Farmer Rick. Once things had finally settled down around here, he had officially decided to “retire” from all leadership duties – which had started an entirely new form of chaos. Of course, no one had particularly wanted a repeat of what had happened with Philip, so the scramble to figure out what to do about leadership roles had been an irritatingly long, drawn out affair. Finally, the community as a whole had decided upon a council. It was the best way to avoid giving one person too much power. Eight members, from all different walks of life, were elected to be the voice of the people. The first six of which had been an easy choice for almost everyone.

Hershel, Karen, Claire, Daryl, Michonne, and Tyreese.

Each of them represented something different, had different views and opinions, yet none of them were what one would call… “problematic”. So far as everyone knew, of course.

The final two, however… They were somewhat of a challenge.

Hayden was a simple man, a plumber and handyman that had pretty much been vital to the development of Woodbury since the beginning. He was elected in order to assist the council in decisions regarding upgrades and repairs to the prison, to which he had proved almost instantly helpful – organising a repair of the pipes and giving us actual running water.

His complications came from his previous relationship with another member of the council. He and Claire had been married once, before the world had turned into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. They had been in the midst of a rather ugly divorce when the proverbial shit had really hit the fan. It had become almost an unspoken rule back in Woodbury to never find yourself caught in the same room as the two of them. They were practically nuclear, always biting at one another, never able to make it through an actual conversation without it turning into a heated argument. Which, obviously, made council meetings quite… interesting, to say the least.

Of course, the squabbling ex-couple did agree on one thing. And one thing only.

That I was a cold-hearted, murderous bitch that deserved to die.

Their opinion of me was no secret and was echoed throughout some of the other people from Woodbury. Not many, thankfully, but enough that it became an issue when I was chosen as the eighth member of the council.

The decision had come as a shock to me and apparently had not been an easy one to make. Unsurprisingly, Daryl had been the one to initially bring me up as a potential candidate. Michonne and Hershel had both backed me, a fact that had made my heart all warm and fuzzy when I’d found out about it, however the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the council. Of course, Claire and Hayden had both voted against me, as well as Tyreese – who I apparently “unnerved”. Karen had abstained from voting, citing herself as “biased”, which had made the vote a tie.

It had remained at a stalemate for almost a full week before the tiebreaker come into play.

When I had heard that Rick had personally stepped in to cast his well-respected vote, I’d almost choked on my dinner in surprise. I mean, we had become closer since his “retirement”, that was true. Now that he was no longer strung out and stressed, he had grown into an almost entirely different person. We got along better than I would have ever thought. Despite that, however, his vote had left me in a state of shock for quite some time.

It had been a week since that day and my first council meeting was scheduled for this evening. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. Daryl was busy helping Carol and young Lucas skin the deer we’d caught earlier that morning and Hershel was tending to a sick little girl. Even Michonne was gone, out in the forests, searching for the Governor, which had left me no one to talk to. No one but good ole Farmer Rick, of course.

“Looks like the corns coming along well,” I remarked as I came to a stop beside him.

He straightened and turned to look at me, leaning partially against the hoe in his hand as he smiled. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Your green-thumb surprises you?” I asked with an amused grin.

He chuckled and gave a nod, looking over his small little series of crops with a proud smile.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him the only reason his crops were growing as well as they were was because of me. During the night, before I met Daryl in the watch tower, I sometimes walked through the fields. My kind had a natural affinity for nature, which enabled me to use some of my limited magical ability to… well, _gently encourage_ the crops to grow. It was nice to see it was working.

We stood in silence for a few minutes, until Rick spoke up, turning his body to face me.

“You’re hoverin’,” he remarked, giving me an amused look.

I put my hands behind my back and gave a half-hearted shrug, averting my gaze from his. “What? Me? Hover?”

Rick stepped forward, moving the hoe along with him so he could continue to lean against it as he gave me a kind look. “Syn. I know you’re nervous about the council.”

“What?” I asked, lifting a brow as I turned back to meet his gaze and forced a smile. “Me? Nervous?”

My voice rose half an octave, shaking slightly at the end of the last word. Even I didn’t believe my own attempts to convince him I wasn’t in the least bit uneasy about my first council meeting.

“I wouldn’t have put my neck out for you if I didn’t think you could do it,” Rick said lightly, reaching out with one hand to place it comfortingly on my shoulder. “You’re a smart woman, Synnove. Resourceful. And you work well under pressure.”

“I’m also a hot-head,” I remarked, giving him a pointed look. “And weirdly arrogant for someone with such a deep sense of self-loathing.”

Rick’s crystal blue eyes softened at that and he stepped even closer, so much so that the tips of our boots were barely two inches apart. He lowered his head, brows furrowed in a frown. “You’re a better person than you seem to think you are. You’ll do great, Syn. Trust yourself – believe in yourself. I do.”

I snorted incredulously, though it was half-hearted at best. His words struck me with an odd sense of pride, lifting me out of the abyss of my own self-doubt. I respected Rick, respected what he had done here, the way he saw people, so to hear him say that he believed in me… Well, it made me feel all warm and tingly. Unable to stop myself, I gave him a genuine smile. “Fine,” I breathed, forcing myself to sound put out. “But if I end up punching Claire in the face, it’s on you.”

He laughed softly, low in his throat, before stepping away from me and removing his hand, placing it back on the hoe by his side. “I think I can handle that.”

We smiled silently at one another for a moment before I nodded, taking a deep breath and turning away from him. “Alright, then. Wish me luck.”

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away. “Good luck.” 

#

Turns out, the luck was most certainly needed.

The moment I stepped foot into the cell block’s centre room, where the council meetings were always held, I was instantly verbally assaulted. I’d barely even had a chance to close the metal door behind me before I heard Claire’s whiny voice pipe up from her place at the circular table below.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

I turned in place to look down at her with a forced pleasant smile, casually descending the short staircase and crossing the concrete floor to the table. Daryl shuffled over on his seat, giving me room to sit down beside him. I gave him a thankful smile as I did.

“Rick agreed Synnove would be a good addition to this council,” Hershel stated simply, giving me a kind smile and encouraging nod before turning back to face Claire. Her face looked as if someone had just unhinged their jaw and swallowed her favourite pet whole. “Now that we are all here, our first order of business is to attend–”

“Hold on just a hot second,” Claire cut in, lifting both her hands up and waving them about as if to get everyone’s attention. “I thought we agreed her presence here would be detrimental to our future as a community.”

I let out a sigh, reaching down to pull up the sleeves of my leather jacket, exposing my tattooed forearms. “Ah, here we go.”

Claire ignored that, slowly rising out of her seat to look each of the council members in turn – notably avoiding eye contact with me. “This is the same woman that changed sides in the middle of a war. The same woman that did terrible, terrible things at the behest of a sociopath, knowing full well what he was. The same woman that murdered a man in cold blood before Woodbury’s fences were even complete.”

I raised my hand. “Actually, the fences were well and truly finished when I killed Marcus.”

Claire finally met my gaze, though it was only to express how aghast and disgusted she was with the blasé way I’d just said that. She pointed an accusatory finger at me with a snarl. “See? She takes pleasure in killing innocent men.”

Beside me, I felt Daryl’s leg slide across the concrete floor, the side of his booted foot coming to rest against my own. I knew it was his way of giving comfort. After all, he was the only one here that knew the truth – well, believed the truth – of what happened that night with Marcus and his two sycophants.

I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Marcus was far from an innocent man, Claire.”

She scoffed. “Your lies fall on deaf ears here in this council, murderer.”

I wanted so badly to scream at her that I was literally incapable of lying, yet knew that would only open a can of worms I was in no way prepared to dive into. Instead, I just shook my head and tossed up a hand in exasperation.

“Synnove’s past is not up for discussion,” Hershel politely stated, looking to Claire with that disapproving look of his. “We are here to talk about the future.”

“Oh, you mean the likelihood of her murdering someone else?” Hayden remarked with a bemused snort. “In the future?”

I turned my head to give him a pointed look. When his gaze met mine, he sunk back in his seat with a thinly veiled look of fear, averting his eyes down to the silver table in front of him. “My place on this council has been decided. Move the fuck past it, man. We got shit to sort out.”

“How eloquent,” Claire sighed, slowly lowering herself back down into her own seat.

I bit my tongue, forcing myself not to bite back at that comment, instead turning my attention to Hershel as he continued what he had been attempting to say earlier. Our first order of business. Apparently, the food situation was rapidly growing dire. We didn’t have enough supplies left over from the remains of Woodbury to sustain us all for an extended period of time. The game Daryl and I brought back was helpful, but it wasn’t enough, and the likelihood the crops would be ready to harvest before we all began to feel the effects of starvation was disastrously low.

Hershel looked to me, pulling a rolled-up piece of paper from his back pocket and laying it out flat on the table in front of him. It was a map of the local area, including what had once been Woodbury and its neighbouring towns and farmlands. “Can you tell us the areas you had yet to scavenge from?”

I lifted my butt out of the seat in order to lean over and get a better look. It was true that Merle and I had made short work of the local townships, having nearly torn apart every house we came into contact with. There was little left in the way of supplies around the majority of the mapped-out area before me, that I knew for certain. We had hit every single house in every single town within a ten-mile radius.

“The only places here we didn’t get to were the farms out by the interstate,” I explained, pointing out the three large acres of land along the stretch of road. “They were too overrun for just the two of us and Phil didn’t think they’d be worth the risk.”

“Odd,” Claire remarked, barely loud enough to be heard. “I thought you were meant to be some kind of Goddess at cutting down biters. Your partner sure seemed to think so. Although, his complete and utter devotion to you, which was sickening to say the least, would suggest his opinions were rather flawed.” She gave me an irritatingly wide grin. “Good thing he got cut down before you turned on him, too.”

The sheer amount of willpower it took to stay firmly planted on that seat beside Daryl was honestly impressive, even to me. My entire body may have been tensed so completely that I could be mistaken for a stone statue, but I stayed where I was. I didn’t leap across the table and shove the palm of my hand so hard against her nose, it pushed her cartilage back into the minuscule excuse for a brain that rattled around in that head of hers. Like I wanted to. No, I remained exactly where I was. As did Daryl, though I could all but feel the anger radiating off him as if it were a wave of physical heat.

A chilling smile stretched across my face as I looked across the table at Claire, running my tongue slowly across my upper teeth as I tried to sort through the red haze of anger that clouded my mind for a diplomatic way of saying “fuck you”.

“Listen here, Claire,” I said slowly, my voice a shadow of its former self in his sheer coldness. “I know you have an issue with me being here. You’ve made that quite clear. Another thing you have made quite clear is your _complete and utter_ lack of anything resembling tact. Merle and I kept you all safe and alive and fed for _months_. You might not have liked the man – and I can’t blame you for that – but at least have the fucking decency to keep your negative comments regarding him out of the council on which his _younger brother_ sits, you ungrateful, undignified, spiteful bitch.”

The room fell into a tense, deafening silence. Claire stared back at me with her mouth agape for a moment before her green eyes slid across to Daryl. Her expression fell as the realisation struck her that she had just bad mouthed a dead man whose brother sat across the table from her. She looked utterly shameful, opening and closing her mouth as if in an attempt to come up with an apology that wouldn’t sound forced.

Daryl couldn’t meet her gaze for much longer than a handful of seconds, looking down at the table with a huffed breath. His boot was still pressed against mine beneath the table. I lifted my foot and placed it gently on top of his, trying my best to provide a silent comfort while I glared coldly across the table at the arrogant woman as she rose from her seat.

“I’m so sorry, Daryl,” she breathed, putting a hand to her chest. “I didn’t think.”

When Daryl shook his head, grimacing, unable to answer, I felt my anger peak once again. Her words had only served to remind him of the pain he’d barely had a chance to move on from. Of the brother that had perished doing the first selfless thing he’d ever done. The brother that, by his understanding, had died for _him_.

How dare she? How fucking _dare_ she put her resentment of me above Daryl?

Slowly, I rose out of my seat, moving my foot from atop Daryl’s in order to do so. “Sit the fuck down, Claire, and if you so much as open your mouth again about anything other than council business, I may just reach in there and pull your spine out through your throat. Got it?”

She looked back at me with wide eyes as she, almost involuntarily, fell back down into her seat. It seemed as if she truly believed that was something I was capable of, as if that cold, hissed statement had reminded her of exactly who she was mouthing off to. Her fear of me had become hatred, but the foundations of that fear were still rooted deep within her.

Everyone stared at me as I slowly sunk back down into my seat beside Daryl, their silence speaking volumes. Karen and Tyreese shared a look with one another whilst Michonne gave me an encouraging nod. Hershel seemed somewhat ill at ease with my violent threat, but allowed it without comment, nonetheless. Claire and Hayden both looked as if they were about to be sick, which was fine with me.

Daryl, beside me, reached out beneath the table and placed a thankful hand on my knee. I glanced at him out the corner of my eye and gave him a small nod before turning back to look over the map once again.

“As I was saying,” I continued, my voice returning to normal. “The farms along the interstate haven’t been touched by anyone from Woodbury. They may well be full to the brim with supplies. Only issue being, of course, the number of biters out there will rival a two-man squad. You’d need _at least_ six.”

Hershel nodded, no doubt thankful we’d finally moved on from the feud between Claire and I. His gaze slid across the entire table, glancing at each of us in turn before coming back to me. “Synnove will lead a six-man group to the first farm, here,” he said, pointing out the closest farm to the prison. “You can take a car and one of the trucks, but if there are too many out there, you come right on back. Do not push forward if you are unable.”

I nodded in agreement, reaching out to take the map from the table and rolling it back up silently.

“I’ll go,” Daryl stated, his voice hoarse.

“So will I,” Michonne volunteered.

“I’m down, too,” Tyreese said, though he didn’t particularly sound all that happy about it.

I gave him a thankful smile, which seemed to quell some of the tension that had pulled his shoulders into a tight line.

“That’s four,” I remarked.

“Glenn will go with you,” Hershel suggested.

“I can get Sasha to come, too,” Tyreese put in, this time returning my thankful smile with one of his own.

I nodded and grinned back at Hershel. “Well, that was easy. What’s next on the agenda?”

Everything went relatively smoothly from then on, as we discussed possibilities on upgrading the fences. At one point, there, I was almost enjoying myself. Once Daryl’s mood improved somewhat, I found it much easier to relax into my position, going so far as to suggest a possible subject to discuss during our next meeting. Hershel seemed to be pleased by my addition, writing down the possibility of establishing some kind of schooling system for the young ones onto his notepad.

I probably should have left it there, of course. Why I felt the need to push it one step further is beyond me, but at the time it had made all the logical sense in the world. As if I’d forgotten my apparent nemesis was sitting across the table from me, intent on my complete and utter social destruction.

“I’d suggest adding some kind of defensive training,” I added, pointing to Hershel’s list. “The kids could probably use it.”

Claire snorted. “Of course, you’d be the one to suggest that,” she remarked, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly. “The children do not need to learn how to kill one another.”

I took a deep breath before turning my attention on her, trying my hardest to keep the promise I’d made to myself to remain civil toward her during council sessions. “I never said that. All I’m suggesting is we give them all the skills necessary to survive in a world overrun by walking corpses that want to _eat them_. But, go off, I guess.”

I didn’t need to turn my head to know Daryl had nodded in agreement. Which apparently made Claire even angrier, for some reason.

“They’re children!” she replied, raising her voice so that it echoed around the empty room. “It is our job as adults to protect them, not train them to be some kind of child-soldier army.”

“Do you do this on purpose?” I asked, tilting my head to the side as I regarded her. “Misinterpret everything I say just so you’ll have something to argue about?”

“You’re the one talking about arming kids!” she shouted back at me. “And you think you’re better than the Governor?”

My eyes partially widened at that, out of the sheer disbelief that she seemed to believe I was no better than the man that had massacred half of our town out of goddamn spite. A scoff escaped me as I shook my head, whispering a curse under my breath with a bemused smile. “You have got to be kidding me. Claire, that man wanted to send those kids into battle. I’m merely saying it would be beneficial – to them, _the children_ – to learn how to defend themselves against the biters. Are you seriously disagreeing with me on this? Do you want them to get eaten?”

“Synnove,” Hershel cautioned. “Enough. We will take the suggestion into consideration and speak on it next week.”

Claire rose out of her seat and shook her head, raising her hand out to Hershel as if to tell him to be silent.

Oh, I was going to hit her. The urge was almost too much. Had Daryl not pressed the sole of his boot against the top of my own shoe, I probably would have leapt out of that seat and across the table before anyone even had a chance to blink.

“I think this is something that warrants discussion now,” Claire stated haughtily.

“Claire, leave it alone,” Karen sighed, speaking up for the first time in a while.

The two women shared a look, during which I could see the sheer exasperation on Karen’s face as she tried to shake her head, a silent plea that Claire seemingly ignored.

“If you go anywhere near any of those children,” the haughty woman began, “I will personally –“

“You’ll what?” I snapped, leaning my forearms against the table as I stared evenly up at her. “What will you do, Claire? What can _you_ do to _me_?”

She leant forward, too, placing one hand against the metal table in order to thrust her painfully skeletal finger in my face. “Listen here, you arrogant little psychopath, I was a US senator. The list of things I could do to you are endless.”

I snorted a laugh. “Where the fuck do you think you are? Washington? Civilisation has taken a trip to fucked-ville, darling. Your hoity-toity senator bullshit means nothing to me.”

“It should,” she spat. “I can have half of those idiots out there believing you are the Devil incarnate by noon tomorrow.”

I pursed my lips and nodded, feigning bemused agreement, before breaking character and laughing. “The way you say that implies you think I give a shit about what people think of me.”

“I don’t care if you do or don’t,” Claire hissed in response. “You ever heard of a citizen’s arrest? Imagine what that will be like in this world. They’ll hang you up by your neck from a tree.”

Tyreese, Michonne, and I all simultaneously took in a sharp breath at that. The meaning of her words seemed lost on her, if the confused look she gave the two of them said anything. I shook my head, eyes hard as I glared back at her in disgust.

“So… you’re suggesting…” I scoffed out an unamused snort. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting a lynching?”

It took her a second longer than it should have to catch on. Her eyes grew wide and she straightened, looking between Michonne and Tyreese with wide, horrified eyes. “That is not what I meant.”

“Sure sounded like it,” Michonne remarked, her voice hard. Tyreese nodded his agreement.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Claire’s wide gaze turned to me. “Don’t twist my words.”

“It’s literally what you described,” I responded with a blank expression.

She let out a frustrated groan. “You! I meant you! It’s what you deserve! For Marcus, for Woodbury, for Jasmi–”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Daryl shot up out of his seat before she could finish that one name that would have sent me over the edge, pointing an aggressive finger in her direction. “You shut your damn mouth! We don’t need to hear no more of your shit, so sit the hell down!”

Claire, as stunned as the rest of us at Daryl’s outburst, slowly sunk down into her chair and snapped her mouth closed. I craned my neck back to look up at him with my brows raised, the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of my lips. Something about the hard set of his jaw as he glared menacingly down at Claire made my lower stomach tighten.

Once he was sure the woman was going to keep her mouth well and truly shut, he returned to his seat with a gruff sigh. I watched him lower himself down, watched him clench and unclench his jaw, with a wide-eyed look of shocked amusement. He glanced over to me and once our eyes met, I had to bite back a laugh, turning to look away before I lost it.

After a moment of tense silence, I looked between everyone and gave a nod. “Well, that was hot. Let’s move on.”

And, thankfully, we did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Please, as always, let me know your thoughts and critiques! I always love hearing from you guys!
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	16. The Path to Dead Man's Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syn's group of six scope out the first farm along the interstate, with varying results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-Diddily-Day ladies, gents, and those inbetween :)   
I hope you enjoy this chapter!

It was worse than we’d thought.

As we drove along the interstate, watching the fields go by in a sepia blur, it became quite obvious that we were going to need more people to get this job done. Daryl rose ahead, a good few metres in front of Michonne, Glenn, and I in our little sedan. At our backs, Tyreese and his sister, Sasha, drove the truck a handful of car lengths behind. As our little convey grew closer to the turn off that lead down to the first farmhouse, we couldn’t help but notice the biters shuffling through the fields. They began to group together the further along we drove, forming denser packs, almost multiplying in numbers with each passing mile.

By the time the turn off came into view, we knew it was going to be next to impossible to make it down that damn dirt road.

Daryl pulled off to the side, rolling to a stop and lifting his hand to indicate we do the same. Michonne brought the car to a stop beside him and I rolled down my window, opening my mouth to speak but finding myself only able to grimace as the truck behind us came to a halt. The squeak of the breaks was loud enough to draw the attention of a few dozen biters within the fields to our right. Thankfully, as they stumbled toward us, the barbed wire fence made short work of stopping them.

“There’s gotta be more than two-hundred of ‘em,” Daryl remarked, gesturing with one hand toward the dirt road just in view over the slight hill before us.

“Well, I got thirty bullets,” I remarked with a soft grin. “So, I’ll just have to take out six or so for every shot. That’ll be a piece of cake, right?”

Daryl snorted but shook his head, anyway, just in case I was being serious. “Ain’t no way we’re cutting a path for the cars.”

I straightened in my seat in order to peer across Daryl, to the dirt road. Even from this distance, I could see the bobbing heads of biters, so numerous they all but shrouded the horizon with their numbers. A frown formed on my face as I turned to look at Michonne.

“Way I see it, we have two choices. Glenn and Sasha drive while the four of us cut down as many as we can,” I said. “Or, we go home.” And I use way too much magic to grow the crops and likely end up putting my moronic ass in a coma or something equally irritatingly stupid.

Michonne pursed her lips in thought, looking across me at Daryl and lifting a questioning brow. Glenn leant forwards, putting his head in the space between the two front seats and looking at us all in turn.

“Why do I have to drive?” he asked.

“You want the honest answer to that?” I responded, turning in my seat to look at him with a bemused grin. “Maggie would kill us if anything happened to you. Also, it would disappoint Hershel, which is somehow more terrifying a prospect than Maggie’s rage.”

Glenn snorted.

“Hershel will be disappointed if we push on when we know we shouldn’t,” Michonne said plainly, sinking back into her seat.

Behind us, Tyreese climbed out of the truck bed and made his way over to us, coming to a stop beside Daryl’s bike.

“What’s the game plan?” he asked, leaning down in order to peer through my open window at the rest of us.

I glanced at Michonne and Glenn before turning back to the other two with a shrug. “Fuck knows, mate.”

“We could take the truck through, run ‘em down?” Tyreese suggested.

I shook my head the same time Daryl said, “Nah.”

“It might work for a solid minute or two, but sooner or later, you’ll get bogged in corpses,” I said with a grimace. “Which, believe me, will not be pretty.”

Tyreese’s face scrunched into a cringe as he shook his head. “Yeah, maybe not.”

“We could lead them away?” Glenn suggested, giving me and Michonne a hopeful smile.

“Could work,” I responded. “How’d you go about it?”

Glenn glanced down at the sedan’s console, brows furrowing as he reached out a hand to play with one of the buttons on the dusty radio. “We could turn on the music? Lure them down?”

“If you’re comfortable with two-hundred undead groupies following you and your music along, sure,” I remarked with a chuckle.

Glenn frowned, leaning forward a fraction further to look up at Tyreese. “Does the radio work in the truck?”

“Yes,” I answered before Tyreese even had a chance to think on it. When I received a handful of confused looks, I glanced out the window at Daryl with a bemused chuckle. “Merle and I used to take it out on runs. We’d fight over the music.” My gaze slid back across to Tyreese as I gestured with my hand toward the truck itself. “There should be a couple of good ole tapes in the centre consol. Do not touch the ones that have an “M” written on them, unless you want your ears to bleed.”

Daryl snorted at that, which made me smile.

“Alright, I’ll get Sasha to drive to the opening of the road,” Tyreese began with a serious nod. “Once she’s cleared some of them out, the four of us will head down there and cut down what we can.”

“Four? What about me?” Glenn asked with a frown.

“You drive behind us,” I said, looking up at Tyreese to make sure that was where his head had been, too. “Watch our backs and give us an easy out if things get too much.”

Tyreese nodded, a smile slowly stretching across his face. “Exactly.”

We grinned at one another for a moment and I felt myself beginning to wonder if he was starting to believe I wasn’t quite as unnerving as he’d originally thought. The thought made my chest warm slightly. It was nice to think, even just for a moment, that maybe not everyone on the council agreed with Claire.

Daryl kicked the stand on his bike out and slid off the seat, walking around it to stand by my window as Tyreese strode down to the trunk in order to inform his sister of our plans. His eyes were narrowed slightly in the stream of sunlight that cast a hollow shadow across his face as he peered into the car.

“You sure ‘bout this?” he asked us.

I gave a confident nod, as did Michonne. Glenn seemed a little put out, but he lifted his head in response anyway. Daryl’s boots shuffled against the asphalt as he shifted his weight, taking a deep breath and blowing it out through his nose in a sigh.

“Why, you scared, Little Dixon?” I asked, grinning cheekily up at him.

He cocked a thin brow and scoffed. “Like hell.” 

The sound of a slamming door behind us made him straighten, turning to look back as Tyreese made his way toward the car with a fire axe gripped tightly in both of his meaty hands. Daryl pulled his crossbow from his shoulder and stepped back to allow me space to exit the vehicle.

Michonne got out with me, stepping to the back to collect her blade as Glenn crawled through the centre to find his place in the driver’s seat.

“We set?” Tyreese asked, looking between us all as I unsheathed the two knives on my belt.

Michonne secured the strap of her sheath over his shoulders and nodded.

“Keen as a bean,” I remarked, skilfully spinning the two knives in my hands.

Tyreese looked down at them with a small frown before glancing down the road, waving a hand at his sister. Her head was barely visible above the dashboard of the truck as it rumbled to a start.

I looked down at my hands as I spun the knives, pursing my lips in thought. Often, I’d find myself wondering exactly what level of skill I should really be displaying in front of the others. After all, there was no one currently left alive that knew the truth of my previous profession. And I kind of wanted to keep it that way. Which meant, keeping a lid on the extent of my murderous abilities. However, could I truly hold myself back when doing so could potentially put Daryl or Michonne at risk?

These were the kinds of questions that kept me up at night.

As the truck peeled out from its position behind the sedan, Sasha wound down the window and hit play on the radio. Clear as day, loud enough to rattle the windows, the sound of Celine Dion’s voice cut through the silent air like a blade through a biters skull.

Instantly, everyone turned to look at me with a cocked brow. Even Daryl.

I pointed at him. “Don’t you look at me. That’s your brothers.”

His brows rose. “Bullshit.”

“Cross my heart.” My grin widened as Daryl’s look of confusion morphed into an amused smile.

“Bullshit,” he echoed, though more out of surprise than accusation.

“Never would have guessed,” Michonne remarked with an equally amused grin.

“He was a man of many mysteries,” I remarked, chuckling under my breath as I watched Sasha pull the truck over to the opening of the turn off. 

The biters along the road began to shuffle down toward her, kicking up a cloud of dirt as they moved in uncoordinated unison toward the loud sounds coming from the truck. We waited until Sasha had begun to pull away, leading a long line of undead behind her, before we began to move forward.

By the time we got there, Sasha was already almost half a mile down the road, a trail of biters following along to the sounds of Celine Dion’s voice. Glenn rolled to a stop at the opening of the road as Daryl lifted his crossbow and shot an arrow clear through the closest biter’s face. I began to march my way down the dirt path, twirling my knives until I came close enough to strike. Quick as a snake, I thrust my arm out, clearing the two biters on either side of me in one smooth motion. Before they had even hit the ground, I stepped forward, slashing upwards with one hand and slicing a biter’s face near in half before twisting around it to stab another pair through their eye sockets.

Michonne slashed along behind me, followed by Tyreese as he grunted and swung his axe down on biter after biter. Daryl remained a few paces back for the first few before shouldering the crossbow and using both his bowie knife and one of the loose arrows he’d pulled from a biter to clear the way.

Glenn remained at a safe distance, rolling the car along with us as we made slow progress up the dirt road.

The biters out in the fields had begun to shuffle their way over toward the road, too, catching themselves on the barbed wire fence like a group of flies attracted to honey. Though, the more of them that came, the less stable the fence became. I kept half an eye on the wooden posts holding the wire together as I cut my way through biter after biter, noting the way the ground behind the post began to move as the wood was pushed forwards.

We were far enough down the dirt road that the farmhouse was clear in view, barely half a mile away. All we needed to do was reach it before those fences gave way.

#

Luck, as it turned out, was not on our side.

We’d barely made it another ten or so feet down the dirt road before I heard the tell-tale sound of splintering wood. It was slight enough that I knew I was the only one that heard it, barely loud enough to catch my attention over the gargling biters and Tyreese, Michonne, and Daryl’s grunts of effort as they sliced and diced their way down the path.

I stabbed and slashed at the two biters between me and Daryl faster than what was likely humanly possible, reaching out to catch his arm. Before he could even turn to face me, I began yanking him backward, toward the car.

“Ty! Michonne! The car! Now!”

None of them argued. My tone of voice left no room for disagreement.

As we moved toward the car, I waved at Glen to move aside. He put the car in park and slid between the two seats, pushing open the door for Michonne and Ty to climb in beside him. I let go of Daryl only long enough for him to make a move toward the passenger’s side whilst I dove into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut on a biter’s outstretched hand. The thing fell into my lap but I paid it no mind as I shoved the car back into gear.

The sound of cracking wood echoed through the air outside, loud enough now that the others could hear it, even through the closed windows. It started behind us. Biters began to surge forward as the wooden posts gave way beneath their weight, trampling over the fallen barbed wire in their path as they went. A morbidly amusing thought came to mind as I watched the fence give way in the rear-view mirror, post after post. It was like a damn Mexican wave of undead, surging onto the dirt road.

I slammed my foot down on the gas, propelling us forward and into the gathered crowd of biters beyond. Bodies crashed against the bonnet of the car as we sped forwards, smashing into the windscreen, spreading spiderwebs across the glass and decorating them with leaking viscera. It got so bad that I could barely see through the layer of blood and gore, which wasn’t great, considering I was speeding forwards at sixty miles an hour down a short dirt road.

Thankfully, I was the one behind the wheel. My keen eyes and lightning fast reflexes enabled me to react at a rate far superior than the average human.

All it took was a glimpse, slight thought it was, to know where I was and what I needed to do. Without warning, I jerked the wheel to the side. The car slid out, drifting sideways down the last stretch of road, knocking back biter after biter until our speed was reduced to almost nothing.

We skid to a stop merely two feet away from the staircase that lead up to the farmhouse’s entrance. Daryl pushed his door open, lifting his crossbow and taking a blind shot at the biter hovering outside before pushing past it and leaping up the first stair.

Michonne, Glenn, and Ty slid out of the back, following Daryl up the staircase. Biters trailed behind them, too busy on their tail to notice that the door to the car had been left open and I was still inside.

There were too many of them for me to even attempt to get through, so I waited until I heard the front door slam open and then shut before I made my move.

I leant back in my seat and kicked out at the cracks in the windshield, shattering the glass with enough force to pop out the window’s frame. Cautiously, I climbed through and onto the bonnet. The metal was slick with blood. My boots barely had enough grip to counter it, though it thankfully made it a lot more difficult for the biters to climb up alongside me.

They noticed my presence instantly, turning away from the front door of the farmhouse and all but throwing themselves down the staircase toward me. From the road, more and more of them flooded forwards, crashing into the side of the car with enough force to rock it from side to side.

I almost lost my balance as I stepped toward the house, looking up at the overhanging eave that kept the porch shielded from the midday sun.

“Syn! Let me go! She’s still out there! _Syn_!”

I heard Daryl’s voice screaming from inside the farmhouse and swallowed back against my rising trepidation. The car was rocking violently now, as if I were standing atop a boat in the midst of an ocean storm.

Without thinking about how difficult a jump like this would have been for any regular person, I leapt, reaching my hands out to grip onto the eave’s guttering. Using my body’s momentum, I swung back, simultaneously using my grip to pull myself up and onto the overhanging roof. I scrambled up onto the tiles, cautious not to disrupt them from their placing as I climbed onto my feet.

I could hear rapid footfalls from inside, growing louder and louder until Daryl’s panicked face appeared through the glass of the second story window before me. He reached down and unlatched it, pulling half of the frame up as I made my way up the slight slant of the roof toward him. 

Once I was close enough, he stepped back to give me enough room to slide inside.

Michonne, Glenn and Ty appeared in the doorway of what appeared to be a teenage girl’s bedroom, their expressions of relief matched only by their exhausted laughs.

“Thought you were a goner for a second there,” Glenn remarked, stepping further in the room in order to slap a hand against my shoulder.

I snorted a laugh. “Ye of little faith.”

Tyreese, leaning against the door frame, cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to ruin the moment, here, but, uh… Now what?”

I pursed my lips as I turned in place to look back out the window I had climbed in through, taking in the ocean of biters that had rolled in from the fields. They had begun to surround the house, almost mindlessly, as if they were propelled by little more than the very basic need for movement.

“Good question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooop. Bit of a pickle, huh?   
I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! As always, let me know! Leave a comment, I will forever look forward to reading them!
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	17. The Harvesting of Gore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stranded and surrounded, the group at Dead Man's Farm struggle to find a way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day! Please, enjoy this horribly long chapter. I know I enjoyed writing it! :D

After barricading the doors with the hideous lime green sofas we had found in the living room, the five of us decided it was best to scavenge through the place whilst we figured out our next move. I was pretty confident both the back and front entrances would hold quite firm against the biters gathered outside, especially if we remained relatively quiet. Sooner or later, they would lose interest, get distracted by another sound off in the distance somewhere. Either that, or Sasha would come back with help. It wouldn’t take her long to realise something had gone wrong. We were all pretty confident about that, which meant the most we could do right now was wait it out.

Ty and Michonne took the first floor whilst Glenn decided to try is luck in the large garage that connected to the western side of the building. Daryl and I ascended the rickety wooden staircase to scavenge through the second floor.

It didn’t take us long to realise there was little there in the way of helpful supplies. After all, most of the rooms upstairs were bedrooms, bathrooms, of a very sparse office space that was practically useless to us. Still, we decided it wouldn’t hurt to bring back some clothing, even some books from the study if we could.

The largest bedroom – besides the main – belonged to what I assumed were teenage sisters. Twins, by the look of it. Their clothing was all the same size, as were their shoes, though the aesthetic of which were practically polar opposite to one another. The sister whose bed rested against the north western wall of the room seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the colour pink. A series of posters hung from the plaster beside her pink-duvet-ed bed, two of which were of a boy band of which I had some familiarity, and the other was from a fashion magazine. You could tell by looking from one side of the room to the other that these sisters had been vastly different people.

The second sister’s duvet cover was of a dark night sky, her pillows depicting what looked like a still image of a werewolf howling at the moon. Clothing was already scattered across her side of the room, all dark in colour, mostly black. The shoes were another story altogether. This girl had three sets of Goth boots. Three! I mean, power to her, but those shoes were like two-to-three hundred dollars a pair. She must have worked her ass off in order to afford three of them. Besides those, there were a set of runners I knew would likely fit Beth, and a pair of gumboots – or rubber boots, whatever you want to call them – that could come in handy.

I began to put everything together in one giant pile in the centre of the room. Everything I believed would be beneficial to bring back. It felt kind of weird rummaging through their underwear draw, but honestly? We needed them more than they did.

I was halfway through the first sister’s obnoxiously large collection of pink lace underwear when I felt Daryl’s presence in the doorway.

Turning in place, I held up one of the near-fluorescent magenta bralettes and gave him a wide grin. “Isn’t this just the perfect birthday gift for you? It’ll really bring out your eyes.”

Daryl snorted a laugh, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms over his chest as he watched me place the bralette on the ever-growing pile in the centre of the room. “Found anything?”

I gestured to said pile with a grin.

Daryl cocked a brow. “We’re gonna need a damn truck for all that.”

“Never doubt a teenage girl’s ability to overstock their closet,” I remarked with a breathy chuckle, stepping around the pile and moving toward him. “What about you?”

He shrugged one shoulder non-committedly. “Little bits. Ain’t much.”

“Better than nothing at all,” I remarked, to which he gave a nod that did not seem all that convincing. With a frown, I stepped closer to him, tilting my head slightly to catch his lowered gaze. “You okay?”

He nodded, but again, it wasn’t even remotely convincing.

“Hey. What’s wrong?”

His gaze slowly lifted to meet mine as his lips spread into a thin line. A muscle in his jaw tensed before he took in a long breath and blew it out through his nose with a shake of his head. “Ain’t nothin’.”

“Oh, it’s something,” I responded, stepping close enough to reach out and touch the bare skin of his shoulder. “Tell me.”

He sniffed before clearing his throat, swallowing back against something I couldn’t quite decipher. “Just… It’s a kids room, ya know?”

My expression softened and I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second before nodding. I understood. It was difficult sometimes to see the remnants of other people’s lives, as dead and splayed open as a corpse on the morticians table. The people that had lived here may well still be alive out there, but the truth of the matter was that the possibility was unlikely. It was never pleasant to think about the sheer amount of death and destruction that had been wrought by this world within the past year. All of the children that would grow up without parents. All of the children that would never grow up at all. My heart constricted painfully in my chest as I looked up at Daryl’s saddened gaze, fingers squeezing the muscles of his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

“Yeah. I know.” I took in a deep breath through my nose. “Want me to take it? You can go look through the master, I haven’t even touched that yet.”

Daryl shook his head, but I could in his eyes that he wanted to take me up on the offer. He just didn’t want to admit it.

“Daryl. Go to the master.”

He glanced up at me, slightly startled by the hard, commanding tone in my voice, but the way his expression softened – relaxed, even – at the realization that I was only doing this so he would wouldn’t have to admit being disturbed by the ghost of a child, made me smile.

With a solemn nod, he pushed himself off the doorframe and began to make his way down to the opposite end of the hall, at the pale white door behind which housed the master bedroom. I watched him until he disappeared inside before stepping into the hall myself, turning to look across at the open door of the child’s bedroom.

Something hard stuck in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it back down as I crossed the hall and stepped inside, taking a deep breath through my nose. The distinct tang of plastic and stale air made me blink. The room was small, with dark blue painted walls and a single bay window that overlooked the eastern fields. A small single bed sat against the northern wall, covered by a dusty Toy Story blanket. The sight of it made me smile slightly, though it faded quite quickly when I remembered the what world we lived in.

Taking a deep breath, I moved further into the room, stepping over to the small wardrobe that had been pushed up against the southern wall. I pulled the draws open and began to rummage through the small clothing, pulling out a good handful and placing it on the dusty bed.

Judith was growing unnervingly quick. Soon enough, she would outgrow the clothes she currently had, and would need more. These toddler-sized outfits would fit her soon enough. Better to be prepared for the future, right?

I was partway through rummaging around in the toybox beneath the windowsill when I saw it. It had barely been a glance through the dusted windowpane, but the glimmering silver of the shed out in the paddock caught my undivided attention almost instantly. Even from this distance, I could almost clearly see the tractor sitting beneath the metallic awning, shielded from the mid-day sun, and the rotary blades that attached to the vehicles front.

The idea began to solidify inside my head before I even had the forethought to truly inspect how idiotic it was.

I closed the toybox and climbed atop its lid, balancing on my knees whilst I peered down, through the window, at the ocean of biters gathered around the base of the house. The distance between the edge of the crowd and the grassy expanse of clear ground behind them was… quite far. It would be a difficult jump, likely too far for a regular human to even dream of making. An Olympian athlete, perhaps, but just a normal, everyday person? No. Definitely not.

While I may not have been an Olympian, I was, in fact, not a regular human, either. I was quite confident I could make that jump.

Without taking a moment to really consider it, I reached out and unlatched the dusty window and pushed it open. All at once, the sounds of groaning biters flowed in through the open space, hitting me with enough force to make me pause in my plans.

During that brief moment of indecision, the sounds of meandering biters drew Daryl’s attention from down the hall. He came striding down the wooden floorboards, appearing in the doorway to see me kneeling by the open window.

“The hell you doin’?” he asked in a hissed whisper.

He closed the distance between us, reaching out to slam the window shut before I had a chance to even blink. The sound of the wooden window frame hitting the sill drew the attention of a handful of biters, causing a surge in attempt to claw their way through the front windows and doors. Thankfully, after waiting with bated breath for a moment, it became clear the barricade and glass were holding.

Daryl turned to look at me, one knee still atop the toybox, his hands pressed against the wooden windowsill. “The hell was that?”

I pointed out to the tractor. “See that?”

“What?”

“There. The tractor.”

“A’ight. Great. The hell do I care about a damn tractor?”

“It’s one of those spinny-death-blade tractors.” I grinned at him. “Think about how many biters we’d cut down with that thing.”

Daryl looked at me blankly for a moment before his brows furrowed. “It’s a what?”

“It’s got those rotating blades at the front of it, look.” I pointed toward it again, knowing full well he was already aware of where it was, and smiled wider. “I could get out there and hot-wire the fucker.”

“Hell no,” Daryl hissed, pushing away from the window and standing before the toybox with a deep frown. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

I straightened, turning on my knees to look at him. “Just think about how easily that thing will cut through the literal ocean of biters down there. We’d be out of here in a hot minute.”

“Ain’t worth it.” Daryl shook his head, staring down at me with a mix of concern and irritation.

I leant back against the heels of my feet, looking up at him with a pouted frown. For some reason, his instantaneous denouncement of my idea had struck me slightly off guard. I’d expected him to agree, to tell me to go for it. We both knew it’d be dangerous, but surely he trusted I wouldn’t attempt something that I thought I wouldn’t be able to do. But, then, it hit me. This was Daryl.

This wasn’t Merle.

Merle would have leapt on the idea, encouraged me, even. He would have told me how much he wished he had a damn video camera so he could immortally capture my stupid, gory shenanigans on film. The prospect of driving a rotary tractor through a crowd of undead would have excited him. He would have wanted to watch the entire thing from the safety of the overhanging eave, laughing the whole time as he yelled out stupid jokes and moronic commentary on my driving skills.

I felt my face fall before I had a chance to stop it. My gaze slid away from Daryl’s, down to the floor for a brief moment before I took a deep breath and turned in place to look back out the window, mostly to avoid him catching a glimpse at my sudden sorrowful expression.

I think he kind of realised my train of thought before I even had.

Slowly, he sunk down into a sitting position on the empty side of the toybox, turning his head to look at me with a sad frown. “I ain’t him.”

My eyes met his. “I know,” I said. There was no disappointment in my voice, only an undertone of thinly veiled grief.

“I ain’t gonna agree to somethin’ that dangerous just ‘cause it’d be cool to watch,” he continued with a sigh.

“It so would be, though,” I breathed, turning back around in order to sit properly next to him. My booted feet rested against the floorboards beside his, toes tapping against the wood. “I know you’re not him, and I’ve never wanted you to be. You know that, right?”

Daryl swallowed as he nodded his understanding, resting his forearms against his knees and leaning forwards. “I used to want to be like him. Followed him around like a damn dog.”

“Isn’t that just a younger sibling thing?” I asked, cocking a brow.

Daryl snorted, glancing up at me. “I don’t know. Is it?”

“The hell would I know?”

He straightened partially. “You ain’t got any?”

I averted my gaze, looking across the room to the empty doorway with small frown. “That’s… a complicated question.”

His lack of response drew me to look at him, seeing the question in his eyes before he even needed to voice it.

I cleared my throat. “I was, uh… I was adopted. My biological parents, they had other kids to other partners, but… Yeah, it’s hard to explain.” Which was true. The fact that my biological parents were as inhuman as I was made talking about them like the vocal equivalent to walking on black ice. I had to tread carefully each time I mentioned them – which, thankfully, wasn’t often. Most people that knew me were aware of my distaste for speaking on such things. In fact, I usually refused to talk about it in general, but, for some reason, it was oddly easier for me to say these things to Daryl than it was to anyone else.

I really didn’t want to ponder as to why that was.

“We ain’t got nothin’ else to do,” Daryl said softly after a moment.

“There are many things we could do other than talk about my clusterfuck of a childhood,” I stated simply, waving a hand to gesture toward nothing in particular.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like… Like…” I lifted a hand, holding up a finger to indicate he give me a second to think.

The gesture made him snort a soft laugh.

“Like, play cards,” I said after a moment.

“Cards?”

“Cards. Or, alternatively, we could find some elastic and make a slingshot to fire random novelty items into the crowd of biters?”

“Again, I ain’t my brother,” Daryl responded, but this time it was more in jest than sadness.

“Don’t bullshit me, you’d enjoy that.”

We both laughed softly for a moment before taking near simultaneous deep breaths and sighing. The silence slowly blanketed the room, enabling me the ability to hear Michonne and Ty rummaging around in the lower level of the house. That, and the sudden, unexplained crashing sound that echoed through the house with enough volume to shake the walls.

Both Daryl and I shot up instantly, making short work of the distance between us and the doorway. We dashed down the hall to the railing that looked over the staircase just in time to catch Michonne and Ty bounding up the steps with a panicked Glenn a few paces behind. The sounds of biters filled the air, along with scuffling footsteps as they shuffled their way into the house from the direction of the garage.

I didn’t hesitate, grabbing Daryl’s arm and yanking him back down the hall toward the twin’s bedroom. Michonne, Ty and Glenn followed frantically behind. Once we were all inside, Glenn slammed the door whilst Michonne and Ty pulled the dark bed across to block the door. Barely a second after they’d pushed the bed in place, a resounding thud struck wood on the other side. Quickly followed by another and another, until the wood began to crack and the frame of the bed began to slide across the floorboards.

That was not going to hold.

Without another moment of hesitation, I snatched both Daryl and Glenn’s arms and began to drag them toward the window I’d entered through earlier. I could hear both Michonne and Tyreese following along behind me as I guided Glenn through the open window and onto the overhanging eave on the other side. Michonne followed quickly behind him.

The door began to buckle beneath the onslaught of the dead behind it, the force of it pushing the wooden posts of the bed against the floorboards with a sickening sound.

We all looked between one another, at a loss for what to do next. There was little room for us to fight as a unit. Michonne was just as likely to slice up one of us as she was to eliminate one of the dead with that sword of hers, given the close quarters.

I turned around in place to take in our surroundings, my mind running through a multitude of different scenarios at once, none of which ended in a particularly pretty way.

Until I spotted the window. The one I had climbed through no more than an hour ago.

Without hesitation, I latched onto both Daryl and Glenn’s upper arms and began to pull them toward the other side of the room, only letting go in order to unlatch the window and push it open. I shouted over my shoulder at the other two as I pushed Glenn none-too-gently out the now-open window, reaching out to do the same to Daryl. He pulled away, giving me a pointed look and waved his hand toward the window, gesturing for me to go first.

There was no time for this.

With an exasperated sigh out my nose, I turned to Michonne. “Go through, help Glenn.”

She, thankfully, did as I asked.

“See, it’s easy,” I remarked to Daryl, waving at him to follow along behind her. “Go.”

He ground his teeth but stepped through the window frame just as the doorway to the bedroom gave way. The wood split and crumbled, sending a wave of biters spilling out, onto the mattress blocking their way.

As quick as I could, I reached out and grabbed the back of Tyreese’s shirt, yanking him backwards and away from the undead. He stumbled slightly, but once I’d pulled him past me and toward the window, I steadied him with a hand on his upper arm.

“Go,” I instructed, using my free hand to pull a blade free. “Now. Don’t argue.”

He didn’t. It looked almost as if he wanted to, but he didn’t.

Daryl helped pull the hulking man through the window as quickly as humanly possible, all but pushing him aside in order to reach back through the window and grab my arm.

The dead were scrambling to get back up onto their feet, though most of them fell forwards once they gained their footing, unbalanced by the mattress. Those that had made it across the bed and onto the floorboards were more fortunate in their attempts.

I barely managed to slide across the windowsill in time to avoid being grabbed, though the momentum of the biters attempt brought it through the window alongside me.

My back hit the tiled eave. The biter came sailing through the window, angled to land almost perfectly on top of me. Of course, I’d thankfully read the situation almost perfectly and managed to raise my legs in preparation.

Once the biter landed on the soles of my boots, I launched it over my head, sending it sailing across the eave and down to the ground below.

Without another moment of hesitation, I rolled to the side, barely avoiding a second biter. Daryl reached down and helped me up onto my feet, pulling both of us back a few paces as a flood of biters began to slide through the open window and onto the eave alongside us.

Behind me, Glenn cursed.

I turned to Daryl, pointing up to the second story rooftop with the hand that wasn’t currently holding a knife. “Get up there.”

He pursed his lips in disapproval, knowing I planned to stay down here, but thankfully didn’t argue this time. Nodding to the others, Daryl tossed his crossbow up onto the roof before jumping and grabbing hold of the guttering.

Once he had hoisted himself up onto the second story rooftop, he reached down to assist Michonne. The two of them then offered their hands to lift Glenn up, leaving Tyreese and I on the first story eave.

One biter pushed through the window, able to wiggle itself free of the crowd that had basically began to plug the hole, toppling over onto the dark roofing brick. It was followed shortly by another. And then, another.

I didn’t waste any more time. The things were slow to get back up onto their feet, I knew that. Smacking Tyreese on the shoulder to get his attention, I lowered myself into a partial crouch and linked my hands together to give him a hoist. He gave me disbelieving look and shook his head.

I scoffed.

It was an understandable reaction, of course. I was a one-hundred-and-sixty pound twenty-four year old, that was true. But that weight was mostly muscle and my body clearly displayed that.

“Just fucking do it, big man,” I hissed, nodding toward my entwined hands.

He let out a sigh, gave me a concerned look, but reached up to grab Daryl’s outstretched hand as he placed his boot in my palms. The man was goddamn heavy, I’d give him that, but with Michonne’s help on his other arm, the three of us managed to lift him up onto the second story roof.

I didn’t get a chance to follow behind him. The biters from earlier had reached us mere seconds after Ty had pulled his leg back over the above ledge. Their outstretched hands reached for me, but I ducked out of the way quite easily, slipping past them until I was on the opposite side of the window from the others. More of them tumbled through the open window, climbing up clumsily onto their feet before shuffling their way toward me. A few of them miss-stepped, unsettling the tiles beneath their feet and sending their stupid asses sliding down, over the edge of the eave and to the ground below.

I continued stepping further and further back as the biters approached. Each step was careful, my inhuman instincts telling me that the edge was rapidly coming up behind me.

It was when I reached the corner and glanced behind me to make sure my feet weren’t going to slip over the edge that I noticed it.

The silver metal glinted in the noonday sun, striking with such a blinding light that my attention was immediately caught, gaze flicking over to its source. Over in the neighbouring field, sitting, alone, unloved, in that three-walled cage… was the rotary tractor.

I looked up at Daryl, who had been shuffling along the rooftop above in order to keep step with me. He saw the mad grin on my face and gave me a very pointed look.

“_Syn_,” he warned.

I only grinned wider, glancing back over my shoulder toward the farm shed in the distance. There was little in the way of obstacles, if I were being honest. Now that the majority of biters had been drawn inside, the grassy lawn that surrounded the farmhouse was practically empty. The fields still had a few stragglers, sure, but they were of little consequence to me.

“Syn!”

I ignored Daryl’s disapproving plea, taking off at a sprint, carefully placing my feet upon the rooftop tiles until I came to the corner of the next corner of the eave. Without hesitation, I leapt forward and into the empty air.

The ground came up fast beneath me. I expertly absorbed the impact, allowing my legs to bend and my body to roll along the grass before easily jumping back onto my feet and continuing my sprint in an almost fluid motion, turning in place to face the overgrown field between me and that shiny, shiny metal.

Above the wind cascading through my hair, above the sounds of gurgled biters, I heard Glenn let out a, “Go Syn!” and found myself laughing.

I ducked and slid beneath the biters dotting the lawn between the house and the fields, avoiding their outstretched arms with little effort. The fallen barbed wire fence glinted in the midday sun. I jumped over it and continued on in my sprint toward the farm shed.

A smile broke across my face, wide and unrestrained. God, it felt good to run. The wind in my hair, cooling the skin of my face, the sensation of speed as my legs carried me across the ground in long, rhythmic bounds. Even the feel of the long grass brushing against my sides as I cut through it like a knife, was almost euphoric. When had been the last time I’d run for the sake of running? When it hadn’t been for my or someone else’s survival?

Too damn long.

I reached the shed with little in the way of interference.

The tractor sat with its wheels behind wooden planks, the rotary blades connected by a long and admittedly complicated-looking attachment that extended from the engine. Its green paint was faded and flaking, the metal frame that acted as a guard above the driver’s seat was rusted almost entirely through, and the divots inside the tyres had actual spider webs spun within them. A moment of doubt made me pause and frown as I looked at this mess of a machine. It passed quickly and I stepped forward and began to remove the wooden planks from before the wheels, climbing up into the driver’s seat and letting out a breathy laugh.

This was going to be awesome.

If I could start the damn thing.

It took some fiddling. More than I would ever readily admit. But, eventually, I found the wires I needed, hidden away in the small gap between the barely-held-in-place bonnet and the long pole that lead to the driver’s wheel. Expertly, I used my knife to strip their ends and touched them tentatively together.

The tractor roared to life; the purr of its engine almost deafening. I let out a mad cackle before using the rusted metal of the guard to climb into the driver’s seat. The long gear stick slid into place with a painful amount of grinding, but once the thing got moving, it _got moving_. It was a bumpy ride, that was for sure, but I enjoyed every goddamn minute of it. Making my way through the long grass, I searched the dashboard in front of me for the right button to start the rotary blades. Thankfully, whoever had owned this block of land seemed to have the memory of a goldfish, if all the labelling on the dash was of any indication.

As I drew closer to the farmhouse, some of the biters came tumbling out of the front door, their attention caught by the deafening sound of the tractor’s shuddering motor. I waited until I had cleared the barbed wire to press the button clearly marked “Blades”.

They spun to life with a metallic purr, slowly at first, but gaining momentum by the second.

The first biter that stumbled in front of me was eviscerated so quickly, I barely had a chance to use my forearm to block my face from the spray of blood and gore.

I let out another mad cackle. “Fuck yeah!”

From that moment on, I drove around the farmhouse in a neat circle, taking out biter after biter with my spinning blades of death, and gaining quite the little tag-along crew behind me as I went. Above me, on the rooftop, the other three watched my antics with a mixture of expressions.

Daryl looked slightly concerned, though the expression was partially obscured by the small smile that had formed on his face. Michonne just looked straight up amused, whilst Tyreese seemed to be confused as to whether he should be disgusted or just happy I was willing to almost literally bathe myself in biter guts to save their asses.

Glenn, of course, was not shy in his blatant enjoyment. He and Michonne yelled out encouragements, pointed out biters that I may have missed from my vantage point, and laughed with each of my exclamations as my tractor and I tore through the undead like an oversized, portable blender.

Bits of biter were being thrown about in all directions, coating me in an immeasurable amount of undead viscera. Honestly, though. It didn’t even bother me. I was having way too much fun.

Morbid though it may have been, cutting through a group of bloodthirsty undead creatures with a rotary tractor was rapidly becoming the highlight of my entire year.

By the time I caught up to the back end of the train of biters following along behind me, the sun was practically beginning to set. I sped up a gear, using the open end of the dirt driveway to turn around, and began to run through the train of biters with increased sped. My mad cackling was almost louder than the tractor engine, though I had to stop quite suddenly as the spray of blood and guts was getting dangerously close to my open mouth.

Gross.

I was right at the end of the line of biters when the old tractor’s engine made a loud clanging sound and sputtered out of commission. A handful of biters were left, shuffling toward me at a very unimpressive speed. Half of them marched right into the exposed blades of the now-stationary rotary, impaling themselves. It was almost comical.

I reached out to grab either side of the rusted metal guard in front of me and pulled myself up, climbing atop the thin bonnet of the tractor. A few of the biters had managed to walk around the pointy thing and were now working on surrounding me. The first one to reach the side of the tractor dropped before they even had a chance to reach up for me.

Daryl.

I could see the lime green nock sticking out the back of the biter’s skull.

Drawing the blades from my belt once again, I slid down the side of the tractor’s bonnet, landing with one of my knives already embedded at the crown of a biter’s head. I pulled it out and kicked the limp body, sending it sprawling into the three biters currently in between me and the front door of the farmhouse. They all fell backwards in a heap and I stepped forward, driving my blade into each of them one by one whilst they were on their backs.

Straightening as I pulled my knife free of the last one, I took a moment to look around. The dirt was stained almost completely red now, with pits of viscera and gore splattered about the once pristine lawn. Even the white wooden panels that made up the entirety of the farmhouse’s exterior was splattered with crimson.

I’d made a damn mess. And it was absolutely, disgustingly awesome.

Barely more than five biters were left. They milled about on the other side of the tractor, making their way diligently toward me. It took little effort to dispatch four of them, with Daryl taking the final one out with another arrow.

Once I had collected the two he had fired, I began to make my way toward the farmhouse door, sliding past the red car I’d unceremoniously parked by the stairs. I heard their footsteps as the three of them began to make their way back inside, through the upstairs window, whilst I cleared out the handful of biters that had remained on the ground floor.

Glenn’s voice echoed through the house as he reached the bottom stair, catching sight of me standing in the archway that lead to the living room. “That was awesome! You – Oh, my God. You look like a horror movie.”

I glanced down at my clothes, once black and grey, now completely covered in blood and small chunks of gore. Reaching up, I plucked what appeared to be part of an ear that had been caught on the edge of my jacket pocket’s zipper and flicked it outside. “Risk of the trade, my friend.”

I reached up to rub my hand over my face. My palm came away sticky. Gross.

“I do not want to know what my hair looks like right now,” I remarked with a grimace. Getting blood out of near white-blonde hair was a bonafide nightmare.

Michonne and Ty reached the bottom of the staircase next, coming to a stop when they spotted me.

“If Carrie were a sister,” Tyrese said, partially in disgust, partially in amusement. I don’t think even he knew how he felt about what he had just watched transpire. “You’d look like her right now.”

Michonne moved to the side as Daryl reached the ground floor, allowing him to pass by as I lifted the hand holding his arrows up toward him.

“That was stupid,” he grunted as he snatched them from my grip.

“But awesome.”

He didn’t respond, but the way his eyes lightened slightly, and the corner of his thin lip twitched upward told me he somewhat agreed. Without a word, he reached into his back pocket and pulled the red cloth he always kept there out, handing it to me.

“Good thing Hayden got the showers working,” Glenn remarked with a grin, stepping closer to me and running his forefinger along the sleeve of my jacket. It came away wet and crimson, which made his grin turn to a grimace.

I laughed, lifting Daryl’s cloth up to wipe some of the blood from around my eyes, lips, and beneath my nose. The smell was probably the worst part, worse than even the sensation of blood and gore on my skin. It was irritatingly sticky. The sleeve of my jacket would stick to the leather body whenever I moved, and my jeans felt extra uncomfortable when I walked. Still, the smell of rotting gore was not pleasant, especially not to an overly sensitive nose like mine.

“Come on,” Michonne said after a moment, stepping past us toward the front door. “We should load up the car and get the hell out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best way to a girls heart is with a spinny-death-blade tractor and that is a bonafide fact.  
I hope you guys enjoyed this bloodbath! A little bit of fun before we get into the hard stuff.   
The beginning of Season 4 is still a few chapters away. I wanted to get you guys a good feel for how the relationships between Syn and others developed without jumping six months into the future.   
As usual, guys, please - don't be afraid to comment. I literally encourage you to. I thrive on it. 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress xx


	18. The Sin and the Sinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the prison fences becoming dangerously worn, the council employs Daryl and Syn to find an alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola, my dearests. Back yet again with another filler episode. Hope you enjoy it! :)

The incident at the farm became the stuff of legend.

A week later, at the next council meeting, no one – not even Claire – had the balls to snap back at me after I had walked back into the prison gates covered head to toe in biter guts. It had been a welcomed reprieve, really. Instead of being feared for violent tendencies, I was beheld almost in awe by the majority of the prison folk. No longer would I get withering stares or hissed remarks at my expense. Now, people looked at me with respect. The kind of respect that still came with the phrase “that crazy bitch” but… in a more, complementary manner.

Who knew grinding up a bunch of biters with a rotary tractor was all it took to go from Social OutcastTM to Most Popular Girl in SchoolTM? Or, should I say prison?

What an odd world we lived in.

It was almost worth the literal two hours and metal dish scrub it had taken me in the shower to actually get clean. Well, mostly. My hair was tinged red for days afterwards.

As for the supply situation for which we had gone to the farm in the first place to fix? Well, thanks to my antics, a larger group returned the next day to a near biter free farm. They had rummaged through the land and found a decent amount of fresh seeds still packaged up in the garden shed. Oh, and three baby pigs! The mother had been there, too, but was too wild and heavy for the group to take back. And let’s not mention the seven metres of copper wiring Malcom had taken upon himself to sneak back into the prison.

Carl and Rick took responsibility for the pigs the moment the crew had brought them back. He had contracted out the help of Tyreese and a handful of others to build a pen in the field.

Daryl and I had remained on the same basic schedule for the past week and a half; hunting, going on watch, going on small runs (which were really just an excuse to look for the Governor). He’d remained somewhat petulantly silent lately. I knew he wasn’t exactly a big talker, but he and I had had many lengthy conversations during watch and during our free time, so when he grew suddenly sullen it was almost as easy for me to spot as the moon in the sky.

While we were on watch, the night before our next council meeting, I remarked on it.

“Why are you so pouty lately?”

He turned partially in his camper chair to look at me with a raised brow. “I ain’t pouty.”

I crossed my lengthy legs over one another and gave him a pointed look from the corner of my eye. “Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for my friend, Daryl. He’s about yay-high, wears a leather vest, has this expression on his face most of the time.” I mocked an overdramatic grouchy frown before breaking out into a grin.

Daryl let out a soft sigh through his nose that could be mistaken for a chuckle before he looked away, out toward the darkened tree line with his lips pressed in a hard line.

My own expression fell and I grabbed the edges of my own camper chair that had been pressed up against the outside of the watchtower wall, and spin it in place until I was fully facing him. “Spill, Little Dixon. What ails ye?” 

He continued to stare blankly out toward the forest whilst I leant forward, resting my forearms against my knees to get a closer look at him. Though his hair had grown a tad longer, now partially obscuring the lines of his face, I could see the tightness of his jaw and the way his eyes were more narrowed than usual. He ground his teeth in thought for a moment before taking in a long breath, blowing it out through his nose, and turning his head slightly to glance toward me.

“It ain’t nothin’,” he said.

I snorted. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Daryl. I know something’s wrong.”

After a brief moment of silence, Daryl leant back in his camp chair and tossed a hand out toward the shadows of the forest before us. “He’s out there. I know he is.”

My expression hardened almost instantly, as it so often did whenever anyone mentioned Phil these days. That flame that burnt in the pit of stomach, the one whose light I always kept hidden from the world, began to peak through the cracks in my armour. Anger contorted my face into a scowl.

“You’re right,” I said, turning to follow his line of sight. “He is. Somewhere.”

The fact we had struggled this long to find any trace of the man only served to stoke that flame inside me. I was a creature of the forests, a being of magic, how the ever-loving fuck had one single goddamn human escaped me?

I’ll admit, there had been moments where I’d let distractions get the better of me. And my need to hide the truth of what I was continued to come before the need for vengeance. But, even knowing that, I felt as if I’d failed. I should have been able to find him. To get revenge for what he had done – not just to Merle, but in general.

It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to believe Daryl likely felt something similar.

As that thought solidified inside my mind, I felt myself take a deep breath. For a moment, I held it, forcing myself to calm that ranging inferno inside me before blowing out the air in a long sigh. There was no point getting mad now.

I reached out and put a hand on Daryl’s thigh, lowering my head to catch his gaze with a sad smile. “Your brother was proud of who you became. He would never admit it, but I knew he was.”

Daryl swallowed, sniffled, and looked down at my hand with a deep frown before glancing my way. When his gaze met mine, he searched my face for a brief moment before nodding, returning my sad smile with one of his own.

I kept my hand on his leg, kept my gaze on his. “He wouldn’t think less of you for not hunting that fucker down. So, you shouldn’t think less of you, either.”

He averted his gaze down to my hand again, shaking his head as he cleared his throat. Though he didn’t speak, I could almost read his entire body like words from the pages of a book.

“I mean it, Daryl,” I pushed, squeezing my fingers around his thigh to draw his attention once again. “Stop thinking you’re worthless. You’re not.”

“The hell’d you know?” he snapped, though his expression was devoid of the anger present in his voice. Still, the sound of it bid me to remove my hand, leaning back in my seat to look at him with a thinly veiled look of hurt. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than you think,” I responded in a hushed voice. “Do you know how often he talked about you? Shared stories about how the two of you grew up? Daryl, I could give you a detailed play-by-play of what you did on your nineteenth birthday. And even that doesn’t compare to the fact that you and I haven’t had so much as a couple of hours apart since we met. So, don’t give me that shit about not knowing who you are. Don’t tell me I don’t know you, because I do, and whether you can believe it not, I think you’re a good man – and so did your brother.”

Daryl’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he stared down toward the grassy field beneath us, his brows deeply furrowed, and his hands squeezed into tight fists by his knees. Breathing heavily through his nose, he closed his eyes and pushed himself out of the camper chair. Silently, he walked over to the corner of the watchtower balcony, gripping tightly onto the railing as he peered out over the prison.

I watched him quietly, swallowing back against my own emotion. The things I knew of his childhood weren’t all pretty and it wouldn’t have surprised me to know that he didn’t often hear songs of his praise or testaments to his kind heart. I knew what it was like to come from an abusive home and into a realm of respect and love. It was a strange feeling and sometimes it was difficult to process exactly how one felt about it. That was why I stayed in my seat, waiting patiently for Daryl to sort through his thoughts without a word.

It took him a few minutes. The soothing sound of crickets filled the otherwise silent night air.

When he returned to his seat, I said nothing more on the subject, and neither did he.

“Did I tell you how I think Hershel has the hots for me?” I asked, breaking through the quiet night air suddenly enough that Daryl jerked slightly in his seat.

He turned to look at me with a cocked brow, eyes widening for a moment before the slightest ghosts of a smile stretched across his lips. “Bullshit.”

“Are you saying we wouldn’t make a hot couple?” I retorted with mock offence.

His small, stuttering smile stretched fully into a grin. “At least you’d have matchin’ hair.”

I snorted a chuckle, reaching out and slapping his shoulder, which made him laugh.

And, just like that, everything settled back into its normal place.

Until morning, of course.

#

The next morning, the council met.

My third meeting, the one that was supposed to be “the charm”. It went relatively smoothly, if you discounted all of the attempts made to derail my comments on what I had come to dub Operation Child In_-_Dangerment.

The current topic of conversation was the degeneration of the fence. It was rapidly growing unstable with the constant abuse the dead threw at it on a daily basis. The metal posts were long past their expiration date, having bent and warped almost completely into a “J” shape. We had to do something to strengthen it or we’d all risk getting overrun.

The timber posts we’d scavenged together had helped, but they, too, were growing weaker beneath the ceaseless onslaught of the undead. Hershel theorised metal would be the best option, though we hardly had the supplies necessary to build a forge. However, according to Hayden, there was a small town a couple dozen miles from here that had a rather impressive industrial area. He’d apparently once been contracted by the mayor to assist with a building development some years back and keenly remembered the metalwork factory that sat near the end of the industrial road.

It was a good day-worth of driving just to get there, especially considering we’d need to take the truck, which was notoriously unreliable, but Daryl and I agreed to it, nonetheless. Those fences were the only thing keeping the undead from eating everyone I had come to care about. If I had a chance to fix them, you bet your ass I would do everything I could to do so.

“Now, you’re gonna need to take a couple days’ worth of provisions,” Hershel was saying, looking at us with a mixture of concern and a kind of stern, almost fatherly look that made me feel all nice and warm inside. “Extra weaponry. And you’ll need to be careful. We have no way of knowing what you’ll be walking into.”

I waved a dismissive hand with a grin. “It’ll be fine as wine, Doc.”

He gave me a pointed look as, from across the table, Claire snorted.

“Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me,” she breathed, shaking her head.

“And your endless attempts to derail council business for your petty vendetta against me never ceases to – actually, no, never mind. That never surprises me.” I straightened in my seat and grinned at her. “Besides, there’s a difference between arrogance and just plain confidence.”

“Well, I’m quite confident in my assumption that your arrogance will get you and Daryl killed.” She pursed her lips in a pouted frown, cocking a challenging brow at me.

Instead of rising up at her, I turned to look at Daryl with a calm smile. “What do you think, Little Dixon? Reckon we can handle it?”

He nodded, smiling slightly back at me.

I turned my head and looked at Claire with a bright, somewhat smug grin. “See?”

“Oh, please,” Claire scoffed. “He’d agree with anything you say.”

“Not true.”

She gave me another one of those pointed, doubtful looks.

I lifted my chin and struck my fist against the table with mock intensity. “The Jets are superior to the Falcons in every way!” I declared.

“Like hell they are,” Daryl snorted.

I gestured toward Daryl with my smug grin fixed on Claire. “Boom. Disagreement.”

She just shook her head again.

Hershel, in his wisdom, spoke up before she could make another remark, tearing out a piece of his notebook and handing it to Daryl. “Here’s a list of what we’ll need. You should gather your supplies and hit the road tomorrow morning. I’ll assign someone to cover your watch tonight so you can rest up for the drive.”

“How kind of you,” I said with a thankful smile, batting my eyelids at the man.

Hershel smiled politely back before continuing with the council’s other businesses.

#

Daryl and I met up by the front of the truck early that next morning.

The sun had barely even begun to rise, which made me want to punch something, but I smiled genuinely at the man as I came to a stop in front of him. He was carrying an M16 rifle and offered it to me with a nod.

“For me?” I asked with a wide grin, taking the rifle gleefully. “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daryl grunted with a small smile, shaking his head before gesturing toward the truck. “Want me to drive?”

“How gentlemanly of you to offer,” I answered, smirking as I slid the backpack from my shoulder and tossed it into the open passenger’s side window with my free hand. Without another word, I pulled the door open and climbed in, resting the rifle across my lap (barrel facing outward, of course).

Daryl did the same, placing his crossbow in the little gap between the front seat and the enclosed truck bed. Michonne had taken our watch last night and was standing by the courtyard gate, ready to open it for us as we drove through.

I gave her a wave as we passed, which she returned, and then the two of us were off.

#

“We need code names,” I remarked, lifting my feet to rest the heels of my boots on the dashboard.

“A codename?” Daryl echoed questioningly, giving me a bemused side-eye.

“Yeah. Road trip code names.” I leant back in the seat, turning my head to face him and grinning. “Like truckers.”

Daryl snorted. “I take it you got some ideas.”

“Bow and Arrow,” I said without any hesitation whatsoever. “You’re bow, obviously. I’m arrow.”

“Why do you get to be arrow?”

“Because I’m slim, fast, and pointy.”

Daryl barked out a laugh. “A’ight. Next?”

“Sheila and Yankee.”

“What?” He glanced over at me with furrowed brows, a smile still pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Sheila and Yankee. Because I’m a sheila and you’re a yank.”

“The hell is a sheila?” he asked. The way he pronounced it, all Southern-like, made me laugh.

“It’s an Aussie slang term for woman,” I answered. “Like “chick” or “broad”, but in Outback-Speak.”

Daryl shook his head with a silent laugh, taking one hand off the wheel and somewhat relaxing in his seat.

It had only been half an hour since we’d left the prison. We had a long way to go yet. I wondered how long it would take for Daryl to get sick of me and my incessant talking. There hadn’t been an issue between us regarding it yet, of course, but we also hadn’t been trapped in an enclosed space together before. There had always been the option to leave. He just never had.

“Hell. What you got next?”

“Hmm,” I hummed in thought, lifting my hand to tap a forefinger against my chin. “Archer and Dagger. Ranger and Rogue. The Redneck and the Rich Bitch.”

He snorted at that one.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, pulling my feet from the dash and turning in my seat to look at him. “Saint and Sin. Boom.”

“I ain’t no saint,” Daryl retorted, though it was clear my excitement at the name had amused him.

“Who said you were saint? Why couldn’t I be saint?” I asked in mock offence.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“It was implied.”

He gave me a side-long glance. “Your name is Syn.”

“Yeah, but I mean sin. Like, s-i-n. Not s-y-n.” I looked at him for a moment with a straight face before crumbling into giggles. “Okay, okay. I obviously meant you were Saint. But if you don’t like that… We could be Sin and Sinner. Like Dumb and Dumber, but sexier.”

He just shook his head at that, looking out the front window with a faint smile.

The scenery past by us in a blur. Our speed only increased once we hit the interstate, enabling us to reach almost sixty miles until Daryl decided it was probably safer to slow down, given there were biters and abandoned cars beginning to mill about on the road in front of us. At one point, early on, I had turned to look out the window, resting the side of my head against the back of the seat as I watched field after field go past, I somehow blinked and suddenly, we were surrounded by forest.

I jerked upright, heartbeat thundering inside my chest as the fading remnants of what must have been a nightmare faded from my conscious mind.

Daryl turned to look at me, brows furrowed in concern. “You a’ight?”

“Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah. Been ‘bout an hour.” He turned back to the road for a moment before looking back at me. “You sure you’re okay?”

I nodded, not voicing my confirmation (because I couldn’t), and readjusted myself in my seat until I was sitting straight against the backing, hands resting against my thighs. “How long we got left?”

“Another six or so,” he answered.

I grimaced. “Think we could pull over for a second?”

Daryl began press on the brake, wordlessly pulling the vehicle over to the roadside and bringing it to a squeaky halt. Once we’d come to a complete stop, he turned to look at me, watching as I pushed open the passenger side door and leapt out.

The fresh air bit at the skin of my face, cooling the burn that had begun to set in across my flesh without my knowledge. I didn’t know if my magic had been awakened by whatever nightmare had apparently taken root during that one unaccounted hour, but it sure felt as if something had set it free inside me. A typical side-effect of being a creature of instinct and magic meant, sometimes, emotions spiralled out of my control. When that happened, sometimes, those emotions manifested in the world around me through magic. Anger lit a fire beneath my skin that often burned hot enough to increase my body temperature higher than humanly possible. Usually, I could manage it. Keeping a tight grip on my emotions came with the territory of being an assassin, though I couldn’t completely suppress them like many of my co-workers could. My anger had always gotten the best of me. It was the one thing I could barely hold back, which was dangerous, considering my fire magic was quite… potent. Even with the magical bind that restricted my magic use, I was liable to start forest fires if I got angry enough.

It didn’t always happen, of course. It was barely any more predictable than a heart attack was.

I was just thankful I’d woken up before I had hurt Daryl. 

“Hey.”

Standing beside the truck, bracing my hands against my thighs, I hadn’t even noticed Daryl’s approach. He’d gotten out likely the same time I had and had walked around the front of the vehicle whilst I had zoned out. I felt his hand come to rest on my shoulder. When he didn’t pull it back, yelling in pain at the heat, I let out a soft sigh and straightened.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at me worriedly, his hand still tightly gripping the leather of the jacket over my shoulder.

“It’s – I just – Don’t worry about it, alright?” I stuttered in response. Honestly, what was I going to tell him? That I’d had a bad dream? I didn’t even know if I had. I’d just woken up angry and frightened and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

“I am worryin’,” he breathed, shuffling slightly closer to me. When he got a good look at my expression, he nodded and stepped back, allowing his hand to fall to his side. “Need a minute?”

I gave him a thankful nod. He walked back around to the driver’s side and climbed into the truck, patiently sitting whilst I took in large lungs-full of air.

Honestly, had it been a nightmare, there were so many different things it could have been about that I didn’t have a hope in hell of figuring it out.

I took in a few more deep breaths before shaking my head to clear the fog from it, reaching out for the doorframe and climbing back up into the truck.

Daryl watched me the whole time whilst I got myself comfortable and slammed the door closed, a frown on his lips. When I caught his gaze, he lifted a questioning brow.

I nodded, gesturing toward the open road ahead of us. “Ready when you are, Sinner.”

He paused a moment, looking as if he wanted to ask something, but thought better of it. With a shake of his head, he put the truck back in gear and we continued on our way.

#

The rest of the drive passed smoothly.

We acted as if nothing at all had transpired, chatting away in that nonsense way we somehow excelled at. Once we reached a dilapidated gas station that marked the rough halfway point, we swapped seats. Midway through my turn driving, Daryl fell asleep, curled up against the door with his elbow resting against the window.

The silence was broken only by the sound of the wheels against the road and the soft, near hypnotic sounds of his steady breathing. Every now and then, I stole a glance over to him, smiling to myself at the serene look of peace on his face.

It was in moments like that where I found myself often imagining what would happen if I truly opened up to the man sleeping beside me. If I told him the truth of what I had been before the world had gone to shit, what kind of blood truly rain through my veins. Every time I found myself wondering, the cold hand of fear would pull the thought away in a violent, swift motion that left me shuddering. I had always been the kind of person that preferred to shoulder the weight of my own demons to stop them from crushing the ones I cared for. Even when the effort came at the cost of the relationships I had been trying to protect.

The truth was, I had chosen to throw myself into the darkness to keep the one I loved the most in the light. But my darkness had come back to snuff out that brightness in one vile moment that haunted me to this day.

I had brought that onto Her. Just for being who I was, who I had become to keep her safe. And I would never forgive myself for it.

Perhaps that was why I shuddered at the thought of allowing anyone else the chance to fall into the same fate. Why I refused to open up, even with the knowledge that one day the truth would inevitably come to light, and likely not in a very pleasant way.

“What’s that look for?”

The sound of his voice startled me so much that I actually jerked the wheel a little, causing the tires to screech as I realigned them.

“Jesus fuck, man,” I breathed, turning to look at him once I was comfortable I had the truck under control again. He was partially sitting up now, his arm having slid down to rest against the inner windowsill, looking across at me with a worried frown. “Warn a girl, would you?”

“The hell you want me to do, whistle?” he asked, the concerned look softening slightly in a small smirk of amusement.

I grimaced. “For some reason, I feel like that would be worse.”

Daryl straightened fully back into his seat, looking out the front window and shielding his eyes with his hand. “How far we got?”

“’Bout an hour,” I answered. “Turn off is coming up, I think.”

Once we had made our way off the interstate, the series of factories Hayden had described were pretty easy to find. They were set up in a sort of C shape, with an expansive, barren carpark set up inside the curve of buildings. A wide alley lead between two of the factories, cutting right through the centre of the C and leading to the carpark.

I backed the truck to the opening of the alley, putting it in park before turning to look at Daryl.

“Best scope it out before we bring the truck in,” I stated.

He nodded his agreement, fetched his crossbow from behind the seat, shouldering my backpack as he slid out of the truck. I followed shortly behind, leaving my M16 in the back without even thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, once again! I honestly value each and every one of you and hope I'm keeping you entertained!   
Let me know your thoughts, as always. 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	19. The Bones of Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their journey to find metalwork equipment in order to fix the prison's fences, Synnove and Daryl come across something far deadlier than the average Walker. Something that frightens Synnove le Jacques down to her very core.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day once again, my friends. That's right, it's that time again. Read on, my pretties, and discover once and for all the answer to your question.   
What the fuck is Synnove le Jacques?

I could hear the unnerving chorus of biters drifting out from the inside of the large brick building to our left as we slowly made our way down the alley between the two factories. The large faded sign above the building on our right declared itself as our destination.

_Paul McDonald’s Metalworks_.

Both Daryl and I let out a sigh of relief when we realised the factory near overflowing with biters would not be needing our attention on that particular day.

Despite that, the sheer volume of sound coming from that factory beside us was something to be concerned about. Running along the side of the building was a series of metal roller doors. All of them were closed, locked shut by a handful of padlocks that glimmered in the mid-afternoon light, though I doubted they would do be useful for too much longer. I could hear the dead behind the doors, crashing against the metal with a near rhythmic tempo. The doors themselves didn’t look as if they were long for this world – the metal was rusted, having likely not been replaced for decades, and bowed outwards beneath the onslaught of the walkers behind them.

We hurried down the wide alley, emerging around the corner of the metalwork factory to find the front entrance. They, too, had a pair of roller doors, both along the front wall and pulled shut. Unlike the other building, these didn’t move and still glinted in the sunlight a shiny, new silver.

Also unlike the other building, these roller doors were locked from the inside. We weren’t getting in through there.

“There,” Daryl called out after a moment, pointing towards the small section of the building that jutted out from the main area. It looked to be a reception of sorts, blocked by a pair of double doors with thick glass panelling.

We approached the entrance and I reached out a hand to yank the door open, only to find it was locked.

Just our luck.

Crouching down, I searched for a brief moment for some kind of keyhole or locking mechanism, rising a few seconds later with a frustrated huff. “Damn.”

Daryl cocked a brow. “What?”

“It’s an electric lock,” I answered, gesturing toward the side of the door where a black key-card reader was mounted to the metal doorframe. “Can’t pick that.”

Daryl pointed a lazy hand toward the upper glass panel in the door. “So, we break it.”

I turned to look side-long at him with a cheeky grin, pointing a finger at him gleefully. “I like the way you think.”

He snorted a chuckle.

“Come on. A few two-twenty-threes will get through that bitch,” I remarked, turning back around toward the opening of the alleyway in order to return to the truck. Honestly, there were likely a half-dozen different ways we could break that glass. A good smack with the back of a dagger hilt would probably be effective enough, never mind a solid kick or two to the bottom pane.

Using the gun was a personal preference. And not at all juvenile, right?

We were making our way around toward the truck when the inevitable happened. A shuddering crash echoed through the alleyway as the roller door to the factory on our left folded beneath the weight of the undead behind it. Like a dam breaking beneath the pressure of water, the biters flooded out of the factory and into the alley.

From further down, no doubt spurred by the sound of their comrades finally breaking free, another roller door seemed to crumble and fall. More biters, spilling out into the alleyway ahead of us.

We were cut off from any escape. I whirled around in place, looking everywhere for some kind of way out.

It didn’t take me long.

On the side of the metalwork factory wall, an old, rusted metal ladder was bolted to the brick. It didn’t look particularly stable, but it was the only choice we had.

I grabbed Daryl by his shoulders and shove him toward it. He stumbled, catching himself on the side of the ladder before turning to look at me over his shoulder. I knew he was about to tell me to go first. Knew it as well as I knew we were about to get eaten if he didn’t move his goddamn chivalrous ass.

“Syn –“

“Just fucking go!” I yelled, tuning in place to keep an eye on the approaching waves of undead.

He didn’t waste any more time arguing. Taking off his backpack and throwing it up onto the roof, Daryl began to climb the unsteady ladder. I waited until he reached the top, which was – admittedly – cutting it quite close. The biters were slow, that was true, but allowing a large amount of them to get within ten feet of me before moving was… not smart.

Still, it was better to cut it close here than put too much weight on the ladder and doom us both.

Daryl began yelling at me the moment he reached the top. I took a running start, leaping up a couple of rungs in order to put my feet out of reach of the biters as quickly as possible. The bolts holding the ladder in place shook with each step I took, rattling the metal against brick unnervingly. When I was a few rungs shy of the rooftop, Daryl reached out a hand and grabbed mine, pulling me up the rest of the way as the ladder gave one final shudder and snapped free of the wall, tumbling down atop the sea of biters below.

Once he’d made sure I was steadily standing atop the roof beside him, Daryl allowed his hands to fall free from my upper arms and glanced down to where the ladder lay, buried beneath the feet of the undead.

“Phew,” I sighed with a breathless laugh. “Close one.”

He gave me a pointed look that indicated he didn’t find it funny. I shrugged, turning away from the edge of the roof to look over the expanse of glass and metal before us.

It was an industrial rooftop, alright. Complete with metal framing and a glass skylight that ran the majority of its surface. From here, I could see through the muck-coated glass to the factory floor below.

It was seemingly empty. Not a dead soul to be seen.

Still. It was no use trying to get in from up here. We had no rope and the fall would be detrimental to Daryl’s fragile human form.

“How the hell we gonna get down from here?” he asked after a moment.

I gestured to the other side of the building. “We cross – carefully. Those fuckers haven’t surrounded us yet. We could probably make it to the other side before they do.”

Daryl gave the glass rooftop a sceptical look.

I pointed to the metal framework that ran along it. “Stick to the sturdy stuff.”

Without waiting for his approval, I began to walk along the metal framing. It was slightly bent into a curve that followed the oval shape of the building’s rooftop itself, which made keeping your footing that much more difficult, but not overall impossible. Daryl stepped along behind me, keeping close enough to reach me in case one of us began to lose our balance.

We made it almost halfway across before I heard Daryl take a sharp intake of breath. I turned in place, twisting my legs to avoid stepping on the glass, and reached out to snatch his hand, trying to steady him. It didn’t work.

He wobbled once, twice, before side-stepping out of instinct to keep his balance. The curve of the glass his foot now rested on only served to unbalance him further. His hand slipped free of mine as he stumbled another step back, throwing out his arms to save himself from falling and coming to an uneasy stop in the centre of the glass pane.

Our gazes met, eyes wide as our breaths came out in panicked bursts. Neither of us dared move. I could hear the faint sounds of the glass groaning beneath his weight, hear it begin to click and shutter. Spiderwebbing cracks began to form beneath his booted feet, spreading across the glassy pane to either side of its metal framing.

It was going to break. He was going to fall.

No. No, no, no.

_Keep my little brother safe_.

Oh, God fucking damn it.

Daryl’s eyes widened even further as I leapt forwards, grabbing the fabric of his leather vest and spinning. His feet struck the metal frame where I had been standing mere seconds ago whilst mine came to rest atop the crack left behind by his boots.

Neither of us even had a chance to react after the swap. The movement must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.

The glass shattered beneath me.

For a moment, I felt nothing but emptiness around me and the rush of wind. And then, the sickening crunch of my own bones as my back struck the concrete floor. A split second passed between my landing and the brief moment of unconsciousness, during which I felt my own skull crack and shatter.

It was a mixture of sounds that brought me back to reality a few seconds later.

Daryl, screaming my name from the rooftop. The sounds of my bones cracking back into place. My own pitiful moans of pain as I blinked my eyes open, feeling every part of my body that had broken on impact.

_God_.

My spine realigned itself, snapping the vertebrae back into place as my ribs did the same. The sound of the fragmented pieces of my skull sliding back together was… gross. I hated it. It hurt.

Still. Better than being dead, I guess. Which was exactly what Daryl would be right now had I not switched places with him.

With a loud moan, I managed to push myself up into a sitting position. The back of my head was slick with blood, gushing from a pressure wound beneath my hair that had yet to heal. I doubted it even would.

My magical ability to heal myself was limited to say the least. Only the most life-threatening injuries would fix themselves without my conscious permission. Anything else, I’d have to focus my magic on. Which meant, the dislocated shoulder, fractured elbow, and head injury were just gonna have to stay. I couldn’t risk trying to heal them, too, given the fact overusing my magic could possibly result in my immediate painful demise.

Long story. Just trust me when I say, I have a limit. A very strict limit.

“Syn! Synnove!” Daryl’s frantic voice echoed through the empty factory.

It took me a second to focus my vision upward, to where he was leaning on his hands and knees, peering down through the hole in the glass I had fallen through. His hands were pressing on the edges of the hole.

“Get off the glass, you idiot!” I called up to him.

I only had a brief glimpse of his relieved expression before he scrambled back onto the metal framework, disappearing behind the murky glass ceiling.

“You a’right?” he yelled.

“Been better,” I answered, reaching behind my head, tentatively feeling the edges of the gash beneath my hair with gentle fingers. They came away sticky and red. “But I’ll live!”

Even through my somewhat foggy brain, I heard his loud sigh of relief from all the way down on the ground floor.

“I’ll find a way in!” he announced after a moment.

“Be careful, would you?” I yelled back. He didn’t answer.

It hurt to move, but I forced myself up onto my feet anyway. This place was hollow and empty, but it would be worth staying alert just in case. My legs seemed to be relatively uninjured, for which I was thankful. The joint of my left ankle ached a little, but it was nothing compared to the throbbing at the back of my head.

Slowly, I began to move through the factory. It was ridiculously overcrowded with machinery and scrap metal, to the point that there was practically no clear path to walk down whatsoever. I had to unsteadily manoeuvre past piles of sharp sheet metal, roughly cut beams and complicated-looking machinery.

There was a destination I had in mind, of course. Across the other side of the factory from where I’d fallen, a metal staircase rose up from the ground to an overhanging mezzanine. I could see a set of doors up there that likely lead to some kind of office area in which I hoped there would be some kind of list of machinery and materials. Maybe even instruction manuals. Wouldn’t that be handy?

I was shimmying between two smaller machines that had been placed much too close together to be considered OSHA accredited, when I heard an odd sound. In front of me, where a somewhat dangerous-looking pile of brick and metal piping lay on the factory floor, I could swear I heard the sound of scraping metal. At first, I kind of thought my head injury was a lot worse than I’d originally thought.

But then, the bricks began to move.

I stood, partially wedged between those two machines, and watched with a mixture of awe and terror as something pushed its way to the top of the pile from beneath.

And I mean… I’m talking like… a good _three tons_ of brick. Not to mention the metal pipes protruding from it like it was a fucking art-student’s interpretation of an industrial porcupine.

Something that had been buried beneath over three tons of brick and metal was pushing its way to freedom.

I took half a step back, catching my shirt on the machine to my left before freezing in place as what looked like a human hand burst free from the bricks, scattering debris and metal piping to the concrete floor surrounding it.

And then, bit by bit, a humanoid creature emerged from the pile of brick and metal. Its lower half was still covered by the building material, but I could see the back of its torso, the long, dusty and disgusting strands of dark hair that hung down over its protruding spine. A low gurgling sound emanated from deep within its throat, hollow and hungry.

I kept myself perfectly still, barely even allowing myself to breathe in order to remain as silent as possible. There was no doubt that thing had heard me fall from the roof, but perhaps it did not yet know where I was.

The creature lifted its head, tilting it toward the ceiling before taking what I imagined passed as a long, struggling sniff of the air.

I could hear its bones and joints cracking at even the subtlest of its movements as it slowly twisted its head toward me. Could it… _smell me_?

I didn’t move, barely even breathed. My entire body was frozen in place as I watched that thing turn toward me. Its ratty hair cascaded down over its face, partially obscuring it from view, for which I was thankful. The parts of it I could see through those dark strands were grey and rotting, a single milky eye peering out from a deeply sunken socket. Despite the likelihood that it couldn’t even see through that particular eye, the moment it passed by me made my veins go cold.

My fear was almost instinctive. It bore no logical thought. This creature, it was a biter. I’d faced hundreds of biters and barely felt a flicker of unease let alone outright horror. Why was this one so different? Why was my entire body frozen beneath its unseeing gaze?

We remained in an odd stalemate for a long, painful minute. Neither of us moved. I didn’t know if it was just my imagination, but I was almost certain that thing was searching for me. Listening for movement. Like it knew I was here, but not exactly where.

It was difficult to control my breathing, to keep it steady enough to remain almost completely still. My chest was beginning to almost ache with the effort.

And then, the inevitable happened.

A droplet of blood from the back of my head rolled down the blonde strand of hair at the nape of my neck and struck the concrete floor with a barely distinguishable drip.

The creature’s neck almost snapped with the speed it used to turn its head to the side, toward me. Listening.

A second drop of blood struck the floor. That was all it took. The creature burst free from the brick and metal encasing its lower half in a shower of debris. I let out a strangled sound as it leapt toward me, scrambling back from between the two machines, taring my shirt free as I spun on my heel.

That thing pursued me, remaining much too close for comfort as I tried to twist and dodge past the machinery scattered throughout the factory floor. I could feel its fingers reaching out for me, close enough that the scent of its rotting flesh was all I could smell.

It was ridiculously fast, faster than any biter had a right to be. And agile. Too agile.

It kept up with me, even through the weaving and twisting. When I felt its hand close on the fabric of the back of my shirt, I planted my foot and pivoted. The creature kept going, the force of my sudden change of direction ripping my shirt free from its dead grasp. It took merely a second to readjust itself, turning in place to face me once again with a fierce, gurgling growl.

Without a moment of hesitation, I leapt up and slid over the pile of scrap metal that had been resting beside me. The sharp edges tore at my flesh, but I didn’t pay the pain any thought. My mind was in full survival mode.

I heard the creature behind me attempt to make the same jump as I continued in my mad sprint, eyes locking on my new targeted destination. Those stairs. I could make it. I could make it.

The thing remained hot on my heels as I moved through the factory at a speed much too fast to be considered viable for a human. I planted my foot on one side of a machine to give myself enough height to launch over the top of another, landing on the other side of that pile of brick and metal, closer to the beginning of the staircase.

The creature refused to give up. It tore pieces of its flesh off in an attempt to squeeze through those two machines where I’d been caught earlier.

I kept moving, sprinting across the small open areas and weaving my way between obstacles. When I reached the beginning of the staircase, I did my best not to slow down, reaching out for the railing and pulling myself up the first few steps as fast as I could.

Still, my speed had suffered. I should have known better.

I was barely four steps from the top when I felt that skeletal hand wrap itself around my ankle. The suddenness of the immobility made me stumble forwards. I slammed my hands down on the edge of the stair in front of me to catch myself before I was unceremoniously yanked backwards.

It was strong. Too fucking strong.

I turned my body around, gripping the vertical struts in the railing to keep myself from being pulled any further. When I looked down toward my feet, the sight that awaited me made me actually scream. A new wave of fear blew through my body with the force of an ice storm.

It’s skeletal, rotting hand gripped my ankle, pulling me towards its snapping maw. The skin and muscle around its mouth had been torn away, giving it a ghoulish grin as it opened and closed its jaws, stretching out its neck toward me as it tried to bite the edge of my boot, mere inches from its jagged teeth.

Its hair was windswept, pulled back almost entirely behind its’ head, giving me an unpleasantly perfect view of its hideous face.

The strength behind it was almost too much even for me. I gripped the railing, trying to pull myself higher as it yanked me downwards, causing the metal itself to begin to bend.

Without thinking, I let out a screech loud enough to reverberate through the entire factory. “_DARYL_!”

I couldn’t move my other foot to kick it as it was one of the only things, other than my grip on the metal bar beside me, that was keeping me from sliding further towards the creature’s awaiting teeth.

The metal bent further, groaning beneath the weight of our combined strengths, loud enough to be heard over the sound of smashing glass somewhere to my left. The pole was going to snap free. I could feel it slowly beginning to give way the longer I gripped it.

With a grunt of effort, I pushed off with my unrestrained foot atop the lower stair and let one hand unwind from the rail, stretching out and snatching the neighbouring vertical pole a step higher. Before I was able to swap over my weight completely, the lower pole snapped free from its bearings.

I was pulled down with another shriek of Daryl’s name that was cut off as my back stuck the edge of the step beneath me. The creature’s gnashing teeth came within millimetres of the bare skin of my ankle, beneath its rotted hand.

And then, almost from nowhere, a green tipped arrow lodged itself in the lower half of the back of its head. The creature’s grip went limp.

Without wasting a second, I began to scramble up the staircase backwards, on my hands. I needed to get away from that thing.

When I was close to the top, I felt a pair of strong arms secure themselves beneath my own, hoisting me up the rest of the way and onto my feet. I continued to stagger back a few steps, my back pressing against a hard chest as I stared at the twitching figure at the base of the staircase.

“_Syn_?” a voice behind me asked in a hushed voice.

The arms beneath mine slid free, hands moving upward to grip my shoulders.

I was turned away from the twitching creature, my gaze fixing on the bright, worried eyes of my companion.

“You good?” Daryl asked, gripping my shoulders so tightly his fingers began to dig into my skin.

I felt a shaky breath escape as I blinked away the haze of panic and fear from my mind. Glancing back over my shoulder toward the fallen thing at the bottom of the stairs, I gave a single shouldered shrug. He squeezed, pulling my attention back to him and his concerned gaze.

“Syn… You good?” he asked again.

I opened my mouth, intent on answering, when I heard a small sound from behind me. A groan, a metallic creak. My eyes went wide. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, a ripple of an instinctive warning rolling across my body like a wave.

“What?” Daryl asked. 

I didn’t answer. There wasn’t time to.

Reaching out and snatching his forearm, I tugged him into a run. The mezzanine we stood on extended a few metres to the eastern wall of the building where I could see the broken window Daryl had entered through. Shards of glass littered the metal grate in front of it.

We’d barely moved half an inch when I felt the burst of air brush across my back as the creature launched itself from the below and up the entire flight of stairs. I heard it crash into the concrete wall opposite the opening of the staircase but didn’t turn to look.

Daryl twisted his head around, causing his speed to slow as he let out a strangled curse. I pulled him back into step with me, spurred faster by the sound of the creature scrambling back up onto its feet against the metal grating of the mezzanine. Our footfalls began to crunch against the scattered shards of glass from the broken window and I tried to pull Daryl along faster. But he was only human, and he was too slow. That thing behind us moved almost faster than me. At this rate, we were not going to make it to that window without it catching up.

When I heard the footfalls behind us change from the hollow, metallic sound of the mezzanine to the distinctive crunch of glass, the realisation of what I’d have to do hit me. A few paces in front of us, set into the concrete wall to our left, was a door. From this angle, I could see it was partially open and lead into some kind of office space.

When we reached it, the creature mere inches behind us, I let my grip on Daryl’s forearm fall in order to push him aside. He careened sideways and into the wooden door, stumbling inside and disappearing from view.

I put on a new burst of speed once he was out of harm’s way, drawing the creature into following me.

I knew I wasn’t going to make it through that window, even with my inhuman speed. That thing was just as – if not faster – than I was. With little choice, I decided within a split second to turn on my heel just before the window and face the thing, grinding pieces of glass beneath the soles of my boots as I did so. The thing hit me with the force of a goddamn freight train, sending both of our bodies flying backwards, through the shattered window behind us. I felt shards of jagged glass rip the flesh of my back as I sailed across the base of the window frame.

We hit the concrete of the narrow overhang outside the window, rolling across it until I managed to plant a hand down to stop myself tumbling over and into the ocean of biters gathered below. With me on my stomach, I barely had a chance to roll over onto my back before that fucking thing was on top of me. Its gnarled hands gripped the fabric at the front of my shirt as it stretched its neck downward, gnashing its teeth together as it tried to take a chunk out of my face.

I locked my forearms beneath its chin, pushing against its efforts to sink its teeth into my cheek. Struggling beneath the force of its strength, I tried to slide my knees beneath its torso, but its body was pressed too tightly against mine. I could do nothing more but focus on keeping its teeth away from my flesh.

Thankfully, Daryl appeared in the shattered window, crossbow at the ready. He fired an arrow just as the creature pushed forward and it lodged into the flesh at the curve of its neck. I heard him swear as he climbed hastily through the jaggedly broken window, clearing the gap between us in a mere second as he pulled his leg back and booted the thing in the side of its face. The force of his kick sent the fucker flying sideways, over the edge of the outcrop and into the sea of undead below. Its grip tore the fabric of my shirt but thankfully, it wasn’t enough to pull me down with it.

I lay, turned at the hip, staring down over the edge at the undead as they trampled over the things body, clawing at the wall beneath us.

Daryl’s strong hand enclosed my upper arm as he pulled me up onto my feet and spun me none-too-gently to face him. He gripped my chin, gazing worriedly down at me as he turned my head from side to side, inspecting every inch of my bare skin for any sign of bite or scratch.

I lifted a hand to gently touch his forearm. “I’m not bit.”

Daryl slowly lowered his hands, though didn’t take his eyes off me for at least another minute. His intense gaze as he surveyed my wounds made my skin begin to tingle in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the pain.

Quickly, before I could think much of it, I turned away. The outcrop overlooked the area on the opposite side of the reception building of the entry door. An area that was now completely flooded with undead bodies, all growling and groaning, scratching at the outer brick wall of the factory as they stared blankly up at us.

The thing was nowhere to be seen. I had half a mind to believe it was currently being trampled over by that sea of undead below. The thought made me grin ruefully.

Daryl let out a breath as he leant over to peer into the abyss beside me. “The hell was that thing?” he asked with a deep frown.

I shook my head, electing to ignore the question as I turned back toward the shattered window. Droplets of blood trickled down the brick beneath it from where I’d torn a decent slice out of my back against the jagged glass. Only now did I begin to feel the cuts and bruises I’d developed within the past five minutes. The cold air began to caress the open wounds, brushing the tattered remains of my shirt aside to display them in all their bloody glory.

“Where’d you put that backpack?” I asked, glancing side-long at Daryl, drawing his attention back from the edge of the outcrop.

He gestured toward the inside of the factory. “Where you damn shoved me.”

I cocked a brow at him. “You’re _welcome_.”

Without waiting to hear what would likely be a smart-ass response from him, I turned and began to cautiously climb back through the roughly shattered window, back onto the metal mezzanine. From behind me, I heard Daryl’s sharp intake of breath as he spotted the mess of torn flesh on my back.

I ignored it as I made my way toward the small gap I’d thrown Daryl through mere minutes ago.

The white door was pushed all the way open now, revealing the small, cosy office space that lay beyond. It was roughly carpeted and sparsely occupied, with only a pair of desks and accompanying chairs sitting within. One desk was pushed toward the western side of the room, with the other situated in the north-eastern corner, beside a tall, somewhat rusted filing cabinet.

The backpack lay discarded by the second desk. I crossed the room and made a move to bend down to pick it up, stopping partway down when the sensation of taring flesh made me jerk to a halt.

Thankfully, Daryl appeared in the doorway a second later. “Don’t move.”

He sounded slightly disgruntled, which was really just his version of distressed, as he approached me, leaning around my partially bent over body to pick up the backpack he’d discarded. Placing it atop the desk, he jerkily unzipped the larger section and pulled out the small white box.

I slowly straightened, stepping around Daryl in order to hoist myself up onto the opposite side of the desk, pushing the dusty folders to the floor as I did so.

He began to unpack the first-aid supplies inside the small white box, silently gesturing for me to turn around as he undid the cap on the miniature bottle of antiseptic. I lifted the back of my shirt high enough for him to reach the torn skin.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded.

The first touch of the antiseptic startled me more than it hurt. A sudden, sharp sensation shot through my body and I forced myself not to wince or jerk away. It took Daryl almost ten entire minutes to patch me up to his standards. Every time I thought he was finally done, I’d go to slide off the desk, only for him to roughly grab my upper arm to keep me in place with a gruff, “_Stop movin_’.”

Finally, after what felt like a damn lifetime, he stepped away from me and began silently packing up the first-aid supplies into their little box. I slid off the desk and walked over to the open door, peaking out and surveying the empty, rapidly darkening factory before pulling it closed.

Without a word, I crossed to the other side of the room and sunk down against the wall until I was sitting on the floor, leaning my head back with a deep sigh.

Without a word, having packed up the backpack, Daryl came over and slid down next to me, close enough for our shoulders to touch. I could feel his concerned gaze on me whilst I stared blankly up at the ceiling, clenching and unclenching my jaw as I tried to force the tension from my body.

Which was… counter-intuitive, really.

“They ain’t gonna clear up,” Daryl stated after a long moment of silence, during which I could hear scarcely more than the overwhelming sound of the undead outside our walls.

“Not for a while, at least,” I agreed with a slight nod.

“What you wanna do?”

I let out a sigh through my nose. “Rest.”

My entire body was exhausted, my mind almost more-so. The healing magic had tired me out damn near down to my very soul, as any kind of magic so often did for me these days. Add that in with my terrifying encounter with that… _thing_… and I was sufficiently done for the day.

Only problem was, each time I closed my eyes now, that _things_ face was all I saw. Rotted flesh, milky eyes, and teeth up to its cheeks. That dead eyed grin. The matted, dark hair that twisted and tangled over half its face, catching on the pointed ends of its partially torn ears…

It’s…

Pointed ears…

It’s pointed ears. Pointed. Ears. Ears that ended in a point.

Just like mine.

I shot upright so quickly I almost made Daryl jump out of his skin. My body was going from hot to cold rapidly, making my joints shake as I pushed myself up, back onto my feet and began to nervously, anxiously, irately, and tensely pace around the room.

I couldn’t even formulate an acute thought. Everything was a haze of panic and speculation and worry. My breath was coming out in hard pants, chest rising and falling almost in time with my pacing footfalls.

It couldn’t be, right? I was projecting. Remembering it wrong. I’d been in a blind panic when I’d been up-close-and-personal with that thing, my mind couldn’t be trusted to recount it effectively, right?

No. No, I had _seen_ that thing. I knew I had. That thing might have been undead, but it wasn’t just a walker. 

It was a fae walker.

An undead faerie. One of my kind, taken by the very virus that had near wiped out the creatures some considered lesser than us. Humanity. We were as venerable as they were and that was a frightening thought.

I didn’t notice Daryl until my face practically hit his chest. He’d risen from his place on the floor and had come to stand in my path, hands outstretched as if he’d been calling for my attention for some time now. I felt his warm hands on the bare skin of my upper arms, holding me steadily in place as he peered worriedly down at me, frowning.

“The hell’s wrong?” he asked, voice slightly hitched.

I looked up at him, eyes still unfocused, and shook my head. There was nothing I could say to him. No way to explain it without revealing entirely too much information.

“Thinking,” I managed to say, though the hoarseness to my voice made even me cringe.

His grip on me tightened. “Your damn near scaring me, woman.”

How could I say it? What words could I even use to describe the kind of dark, shadow of doom and bone-deep unease that I felt pressing in on my chest? He wouldn’t understand – _couldn’t_ understand. Not this.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said slowly, forcing myself to meet his gaze evenly.

“That’s all I’m damn doing,” he snapped back, his voice somehow soft despite the harsh delivery. “Talk to me.”

I shook my head. “I need to sleep.” Without waiting for his response, I pulled myself out of his grip and stepped past him, back over to the wall I’d originally sunk down against. Returning to the floor, I forced my breaths to calm and squeezed my eyes shut, shoving every other image into my mind I could think of to clear the picture of that undead nightmare from the darkness behind my closed lids.

A movie of memories passed in a flash.

My baby sister, Thana, giggling on her back on our white sofa, her brilliant red hair sprayed out around her head, contrasting against the soft yellow of her _Wiggles_ pyjama’s.

Alister, my adoptive father, smiling brightly as he unscrewed the cap of a whiskey bottle and poured me my first legal drink.

A flash of a beautiful landscape of rolling green, a forest as big and vast as an ocean, seen from the top of a castle spire beneath a brilliant night sky with two moons.

An old redneck, sitting in the driver’s seat of a rusted truck, belting out his own rendition of “_I Will Always Love You_” horribly off key while he fought back a grin.

A younger man in a leather, angle-winged vest, smiling at me over his shoulder from the back of his motorcycle.

I forced myself to remember, to think of anything else but that one, terrifying picture, but even as these memories, these flashes of images I held dear to my heart, played out, I could see the torn and rotting face growing clearer and clearer beneath them until they had faded out completely and it was all I could see.

My eyes opened.

Almost instantly, my gaze was drawn to Daryl, who was leaning against the desk in front of where I sat, looking down at me with a concerned frown.

Neither of us spoke as we looked at one another. After surveying what was likely my _miserable _expression, Daryl silently pushed off from the desk and came to sit beside me once again, lifting one of his arms and inviting me to shuffle closer. I did, without a word, resting my cheek against his collar and nuzzling the top of my head into the side of his neck. The side of his face came to rest against my hair as the arm around me tightened, hand softly gripping my shoulder.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. All I remember was deciding to close my eyes before I began to drift away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to lie, that one stressed me out to write. Hope you weren't reading it in the dark.   
Thank you so much for tuning in to my bullshitery once again! I appreciate each and every one of you more than you know! Don't forget to leave a comment, if you're feeling particularly generous this festive season. 
> 
> Also, happy holidays! I hope you all have an awesome one! 
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	20. The Burden of Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the horrific discovery at the metalwork factory, Daryl and Syn return home with empty hands and haunted hearts.

A faerie walker.

The very epitome of a terror inducing, dread inciting, world upending nightmare. As if the normal walkers weren’t bad enough, now I had to worry about my own kind coming back from the dead. _My own kind_. A kind that possessed the same – if not greater – strength, speed, agility, and senses that I did.

A kind that would overpower any human that came against it.

#

When we awoke that morning, it was to an eerie and haunting silence.

We broke through the front door in order to exit the factory. Once outside, the sunlight illuminated the reality of what had happened. The walkers hadn’t abandoned us entirely. They’d gathered by the other end of the carpark, near the tree line that lead to a wide forest. The sound of shattering glass had alerted them to our presence once again, though they were thankfully far enough away for us to make it safely back to the truck without much issue, only having to clear a handful that had wondered into our path.

I was shaken and weirdly upset for the majority of our drive back to the prison. For some reason, everything that had transpired within the factory had felt almost personal. As if I’d known that walker. As if I grieved its death. It didn’t make sense to me, not entirely. I understood that knowing my kind were just as susceptible to the virus as the rest of the populace had made me uneasy. But there was something else. Something more behind the revelation that I couldn’t put my finger on. Had it shown me the potential ending of my story? Is that why I was so disturbed? Or was it because I had yet to come up with a valid explanation as to why that one particular biter had been so… strong? So fast and nimble? Daryl hadn’t pushed the question and for that I was thankful, but he was a dime in a dozen. Others would want to understand, would want to know how to fight against it.

The existence of faerie walkers made me feel as if my secret was teetering on the edge of an already unsteady fence.

Not only that, but the reality of how dangerous those things were… Even I had struggled against it. What would happen if we happened upon another near the prison? It would tear through everyone with little effort.

Perhaps that was what shook me. The potential calamity the existence of fae walkers posed. It was enough to make my head spin.

Daryl noted my strange shift in mood. He kept looking at me as we drove, glancing back and forth between the road and where I sat, crunched up into a partial ball in the passenger seat, gazing blankly out the window at the passing scenery. I could feel his concerned eyes on me every so often.

Neither of us spoke for over half of the drive. The only reason I said anything was because it had come to my attention that we had passed the halfway mark where we had swapped drivers last time.

“You going to stop?” I asked with a frown, turning partially in my seat to look at him.

Daryl looked over to me with a small frown creasing the skin between his brows. “Nah, it’s a‘right. You sleep.”

I straightened out of my ball, placing my feet down in the footwell and turning my body to face him entirely. “You barely slept, too.”

“I’m fine,” he argued softly.

I shook my head, gesturing down the road to where the rundown, abandoned gas station’s sign rose above the horizon. “Pull over there. We’ll swap.”

He gave me another concerned look. “You sure?”

“Yes, Sinner. I’m sure.” I forced a bright grin that I was pretty sure he saw right through. Still, he did as I asked a few moments later, pulling into the gas station and putting the truck in park. I went to climb out when he reached over and grabbed my upper arm.

“You gonna tell me?” he asked.

I felt my face fall before I had a chance to control it. Pursing my lips in a frown, I shook my head. No. No, I wasn’t going to tell him. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust him, or because I didn’t want him knowing. Hell, if I were going to tell anyone… It’d be him. But the not-knowing… I couldn’t risk the potential consequences. Couldn’t risk him reacting poorly. Whatever we had here, between us… it was more important to me than anything else in this godforsaken place. I wasn’t about to put that to the test.

My answer seemed to sadden Daryl somewhat, but he nodded his understanding anyway and let go of my arm. We climbed out of the truck without another word, passing one another at the front of the vehicle before pulling ourselves back in on opposite sides.

I didn’t put the truck in gear.

Staring down at the wheel, I felt the words come out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. “It freaked me out.”

Daryl didn’t say anything, though I could feel his eyes on me.

“I don’t… I don’t get scared like that. Haven't for a long time, at least.”

“You could’a died. It’s scary shit,” Daryl said softly, leaning forward with his elbows against his knees as he looked at me.

I turned slightly to meet his gaze with a shake of my head. “It’s not that… I almost die quite often.”

He pulled his brows down in a questioning frown.

“It’s that I was in that situation to begin with.” I shook my head, looking back down at the wheel in front of me. “I’m better than that. I don’t misstep. I don’t falter. That’s what I was–“

My mouth slammed shut with enough force to click my teeth. That was what I was trained for. Not to falter, not to misstep. To be constantly vigilant, agile, able to outmaneuver any nearby threat. Why was that so difficult sometimes when he was around?

“You don’t need to hear this,” I sighed, leaning back in my seat and looking to the ceiling.

Daryl opened his mouth to speak, but I shoved the truck violently into gear and pulled out of the gas station before he had a chance to voice his opinion.

#

When we arrived back, it was in defeat.

We hadn’t managed to salvage much from the metalwork place, due to it being overrun. A whole truck full of gas had been wasted on the trip and all we’d come back with was fucking nightmare fuel. Once we had parked the truck in the yard at the prison, I’d climbed out of the driver’s door, tossed Michonne – who had been waiting for us by the gate – the keys, and walked off into the cellblock.

No one followed me, likely at the behest of Daryl’s somewhat aggressive, “Leave her alone.” I don’t know who had attempted to follow me, but I was glad for Daryl’s blockade.

For some weird reason, I went straight to the showers. Didn’t even stop to grab a change of clothes. I turned on the hot water tap and let it start steaming before I stepped in. The scolding liquid cascaded down my bare skin, warming the entirety of my body right down to my bones. I didn’t touch the cold tap.

Another benefit of being me. I didn’t burn. Never had. My skin was never singed or blistered from the heat. In fact, I found excessive warmth to be comforting. Relaxing, even.

I stood in that boiling hot water for much longer than I probably should have. Once I realized what I was doing, I reached out and turned the tap off, guilt beginning to gnaw at me. We didn’t have the vastest of wells of hot water. I shouldn’t use it all.

With a sigh, I stepped out of the shower and into the cool air of the bathroom, gripping the sink with either hand and peering into the steamed, partially broken mirror with a frown. My blonde hair was wet, laying flat and parting on either side of my ears, the pointed ends of which were practically mocking me through my reflection.

“The fuck am I supposed to do now?” I whispered to myself.

“Dry off, maybe?” a voice from the corner said lightly.

I spun in place to find Carol standing in the entryway, holding a fresh towel up.

“My, you really are… covered in tattoos, aren’t you?” she asked, averting her gaze from my naked body with a nervous laugh.

I breathed out a soft chuckle, glancing down at myself. It was true. There was scarcely any skin left untouched on my body. My left arm, below the elbow, and the area beneath my underwear and bra line were probably the only spots left – except, even there, I had two small tattoos. A small, adorable depiction of Pikachu on my pelvis, and a shitty, home-done tattoo on my ass that was just the word “smart” written in a poor attempt at cursive. Read at the wrong angle, you could say it said “snart”.

“Here you go,” Carol continued after a brief moment of awkward silence, stepping forward to offer me the towel in her hands. “I saw you come in earlier. Thought you could use this.”

I took the soft fabric with a thankful smile. “Cheers.”

She smiled politely back at me. “Us girls gotta look out for each other, right?”

I immediately felt my brow rise and my eyes narrow in suspicion. “Yes?”

While I was a strong believer in the whole “women-protecting-women” thing, I was also in no way, shape, or form unfamiliar with the act of trading favours. Carol wanted something from me. I was almost certain of it.

She cracked beneath my stare almost instantly. “Okay, I wanted to ask you something,” she admitted with her bright eyes wide and hopeful.

“Shoot,” I said plainly, holding the towel in place by crossing my arms across my chest.

“The kids,” Carol began. “I heard you said something about teaching them to protect themselves last council.”

“Two things – one, correct. Two, why was correct?” My brow only lifted further into my hairline as I looked down at her. “Who told you?”

“Daryl,” she stated, as if that should have been the obvious answer.

Which, honestly, it probably should have been.

“Right.” I pursed my lips in a thoughtful frown for a moment before nodding at her to continue.

She took a deep breath and stepped closer to me, growing animated with her hands as she spoke. “I think you’re right. I think these kids… They need to learn how to fight. To defend themselves against the dead. But the others on the council –“ she shook her head “ – they won’t agree.”

I furrowed my brows, giving her a small nod of agreement. The thought had crossed my mind. “Hershel didn’t seem all too keen on the idea. Michonne, Daryl, and I are probably the only ones that would agree to it. Tyreese and Karen are a fifty-fifty either way. Which leaves Claire and Hayden who we all know will vote for the opposite thing that I do.”

Carol made a sound of disapproval, nodding with an irritated expression. I doubted she liked Claire much, either. That woman had a strange affect. Like barracking for Collingwood – you either loved her or you hated her. There was never much in between.

“If it goes to a tie… We go to Rick,” I said, giving her a curious look.

Her expression only grew darker. “He won’t like it.”

“Really?” I asked, cocking a brow. “But Carl’s –“

“Carl killed an unarmed boy,” Carol cut in, shaking her head. “Rick’s worried he’s getting… desensitised by everything.”

“And he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to the kids,” I guessed with a sigh. “Surely, he can be convinced otherwise?”

“You’re welcome to try,” she remarked with a small smile, leaning up against the wall beside the sinks. “But I think we should prepare for the worst case.”

“In which we are voted to the moon?”

She breathed out a small chuckle through her nose. “In so many words.”

I sighed. “This is what I get for nicknaming it Operation Child In-Dangerment… I take it you’ve put together a project presentation to show me exactly what it is you have in mind?” I asked.

She gave a one shouldered shrug and smiled. “Something like that.”

“When you were going through this presentation in your mind, did it, by chance, involve me being in nothing but a towel?” I asked with a cocked brow, fighting back against my grin.

Carol gave me a suggestive smirk. “And what if it had?”

“Then I’d say you’ve got good taste, my friend.”

We laughed between ourselves for a brief moment before Carol suggested I get dressed and meet me in the library within the hour. I agreed, throwing on my old clothes before heading back out to the cell that housed my makeshift bedroom. After changing into some fresher clothes, I was about to step out into the hall when I almost collided head-first into a hard chest.

I stepped back, blinking up in surprise at Rick’s bemused expression. “Oh, hello.”

“Hi,” he responded with a small smile that faded a second later to a concerned frown.

I looked up at him with a confused expression. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Daryl told me what happened,” he said softly. “I was coming to see if you were alright.”

“Aren’t I always?” I remarked with – admittedly – much too bright a grin.

He tilted his head partially, cocking his brow as he regarded me. Though he said nothing, I could tell by that look that he didn’t believe me in the slightest.

I let out a sigh through my nose and deflated somewhat. “Fine. It was fucked up and creepy and I will have nightmares about it for months to come. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Rick’s lips thinned out into a line. “Do you know why it was… different?”

Shit. Don’t ask me that. Goddamn it.

In an attempt to avoid coming up with some elaborate non-lie, I let out an exasperated breath from between my teeth and just shrugged my entire body. “How the fuck would I know?”

He nodded, looking troubled. “You sure you’re alright?”

I pursed my lips. No. Not really. But Carol had practically just served me up a distraction on a silver platter and there was no way in hell I was going to not take it. Reaching up, I placed a hand gently on Rick’s hard shoulder and smiled. “Don’t you worry about me, Ricky, darling. I’m a resilient little fucker.”

That made him smiled, a little chuckle escaping him as he nodded his agreement. “I’ve noticed that.”

“Hard not to when you’re gazing adoringly at me all the time, isn’t it?” I remarked with a smug wink, sliding past him as he snorted, “Oh, you noticed?” jokingly.

He stayed in the cellblock whilst I made a not-too-hasty-to-be-suspicious exit. The library was way back down the other end of the block, meaning I had to wade past many a people that bid for my attention on the way. I slipped past them with an apologetic little smile and whispered assurances that we’d talk soon. By the time I’d made it to the library, it looked almost as if Carol were preparing to leave.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” she admitted as I walked through the door, smiling at Maggie as she sauntered past me on the way out.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I remarked, closing the distance between us. Before I reached her, she jerked her head to the side and began to lead me down the short row of aisles. At the back of the room, there was a large sitting area, littered with chairs.

“We start a book club,” Carol said with an excited grin.

“And pretend to read to the kids while the others are here, but really be teaching them Sophistication of Knifework 101?” I guessed with a cocked brow.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“Alright, good start,” I said, rolling back on my heels. “How do we make sure none of them tell their parents – or guardians?”

Carol’s excited smile faded somewhat. “Good point.”

“We could make it a fun thing,” I suggested. “Like, a secret society. Only the cool kids can join, with passwords and secret hand signals and – oh. Yeah. That’s a cult.” I looked up to the ceiling and sighed. This was harder than I’d thought it would be.

“We could… you know… actually start a book club?” I suggested, cocking a brow. Lord knew I would be _down_ for that. “Introduce the whole Knifework 101 once we’ve established an actual relationship with the kids and parents,” I continued, again cringing at the way that sentence had sounded. “My God, this really is how cults start. If I start talking about ethereal beings beaming us up in their UFO to the realm of heaven, slap me.”

Carol gave me an amused look before glancing nervously over my shoulder at the second doorway to the library. I heard it open and a pair of footfalls step into the room but didn’t turn around to see who it was.

Mostly because I’d recognise that stench anywhere.

“Clairy,” I greeted, giving Carol a rather overdramatic look of disgust that made her bite her lower lip to keep from smiling.

“Ah, Miss Jacques,” Claire responded in a polite tone. “I heard you’d returned.”

“Much to your disappointment, I presume.”

I felt as much as heard her approach, crossing the small distance between us across the tattered, ugly carpet to come to a stop behind me. Carol watched her, schooling her expression into a polite smile, somehow managing to smooth the obvious disdain from her narrowed eyes.

“My disappointment lay more with your failure than your return,” Claire responded, managing to sound both condescending _and_ courteous at the same time. It was a true art, that tone of hers – one I didn’t doubt she’d developed during her many years surrounded by politicians. “I was under the impression you were unstoppable,” Claire continued. “Yet you were unable to complete a single task because of one biter?” She clicked her tongue. “Merle would be disappointed in you.”

I slowly spun around to face her, my smile so forced I could literally feel the tendons in my neck stiffening with the effort. “The only reason Merle would be disappointed in me is because I am holding back on my near overwhelming urge to punch you in the fucking face right now.”

Claire blinked, her brows lifting in a slight expression of surprise. “My. How uncivilized.”

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Carol asked from behind me, drawing the other woman’s gaze to her.

“Yeah, Clare, don’t you have somewhere else to be?” I agreed, slowly grinning. “Like a tower, from where you cackle whilst you mount your broomstick and shout hexes at the townsfolk below?”

Claire snorted. “You read too much fiction.”

_Oh, sweetheart. My entire life is a fucking fiction novel. And I hate the author._

I clicked my fingers. “Funny you should mention _reading_, actually. Carol and I were just discussing the beginnings of a book club for the younglings. We can expect your support, can’t we? Seeing as how you’re such a person of the people and all, huh? Gotta foster the growth of the children, don’t we?”

I saw the way her lower lids twitched as if she wanted to glare at me, though knew better than to do so whilst we were weren’t alone.

“Of course,” she said, her voice slow and tense. Even her smile faltered.

I clapped a hand on her shoulder, a little harder than was probably needed. “Excellent. I look forward to hearing your proclamation of support when I bring up our plans at the next council meeting.”

Her teeth were practically grinding together at this point. “Until then.”

“Until then, Clairy. Toodles.”

I slid past her, turning mid-step to wave at Carol as I backed out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy-hoo! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas or Holiday Season or whatever it is you celebrate! :)   
I just thought I'd warn you that there is a short tale to be told of Synnove's time at the prison before I start the introduction to Season 4's plot line. I'll try to put them out in relatively quick succession to enable people to skip forward should they wish to. 
> 
> Anyway! I still hope you enjoyed this chapter! If you're still feeling in the holiday spirit, gift me a comment and I will send you my everlasting love and respect! 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	21. The Shadow of Suspicion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barely recovered from her scare, Synnove puts herself into the middle of a troubling mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day, ladies and gents and all those in between. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of the decade!

Daryl found me a few hours later, hold up in the corner of my room, curled up in the corner atop my bunk. My legs were crossed, partially hiding the open jar of moonshine I had safely resting between my legs. When the novelty Lord of the Rings shower curtain I’d stolen on one of our runs parted with a distinct sound of crinkling plastic, I glanced up from the book in my hands and met Daryl’s searching gaze with a raised brow.

“Yes?”

He stepped further into the room, allowing the curtain to fall closed behind him. I only had one candle to illuminate the room, which left the majority of it in darkness whilst I utilised it to read, so I could only just make out his perplexed expression from the side of my bunk.

“You doin’ alright?” he asked me softly.

I let the book fall into my lap, lying atop the open moonshine to further hide it from his gaze. Why I felt the need to keep my emotionally motivated drinking secret from him was beyond me. “What makes you think I wouldn’t be?”

His pointed look was answer enough.

I let out a long sigh through my nose before jerking my head to the side, gesturing for him to join me. He reached up and grabbed the top of the ladder, hoisting himself up onto the bunk and settling into a relaxed slouch against the wall. His legs were long enough to partially hang over the side.

Placing the open book beside me, I grabbed the jar of moonshine and offered it to him.

His eyes widened partially in the dim light of the room as if caught by surprise, but he reached out and took it nonetheless.

“You and Rick are like a pair of overbearing mothers, you know that?” I remarked with a smirk.

Daryl snorted, taking a swig from the jar before handing it back to me. “Shut up.”

I gave a soft chuckle, trying to lighten the mood, but Daryl’s gaze remained on me, searching and concerned. After remaining silent for a few moments, I let out a huff through my nose and finally turned to look at him, speaking perhaps a little too pointedly. “I’ll be fine, alright? God.”

Daryl lifted his hands in defence. “A’ight! Sorry.”

We fell into silence for a few brief moments whilst I looked to the ceiling. Perhaps I had been a little too harsh. But, honestly? He was acting as if I’d witnessed my best friend get shot or some shit.

“It was just a… I don’t know. It was something I should have handled better.” I looked back to the man sitting on the other end of the bed with a small, strained smile. “I’m not exactly used to fucking up in a life-or-death situation. They’re usually my shtick, you know?”

Daryl nodded slowly, though I wasn’t entirely sure he actually understood. After all, how could he, when he knew so little of what my life had been like Before?

After taking a swing from the jar, I handed it back to Daryl. I used the silence whilst he was drinking to change the subject.

“So… That group from the second farm come back today?” I asked in as casual a manner as I could manage.

After Daryl and I had decided on our day trip to the metalwork factory, Hershel and Claire had organised a separate group to scope out the farm next door to the one my group had hit the week before. I’d made my concern on the matter quite clear. Malcom and Caleb were older gentlemen, both of whom had lost someone in the roadside massacre. Neither were particularly in the right state of mind to be going out on a run. And Terry? He was practically a kid. No more than a year older than Beth with next to no weaponry experience, he was far from ready for that kind of mission. The other two, at least, I understood. Walter and Frank had been members of the Governor’s inner circle in those last few weeks before my “turn”. They were followers through-and-through, with little more than a single brain cell shared between them. To give them credit, though, their military backgrounds had given them a slight edge over the rest of the people from Woodbury. The two of them had worked their asses off to earn their position on the guard beside Merle and I and were quite handy in a tight spot.

At the sound of my question, Daryl stiffened slightly before slowly giving me a nod.

“Bring back anything interesting?”

“Couple o’ seeds, bags o’ yeast, some tools, bits o’ copper wire and timber.” He sighed. “Ain’t much, but at least it’s somethin’.”

“Everyone come back alright?”

His response was to press the tip of the jar against his mouth and tip it back, taking a long swing of the clear liquid inside. It took a second after he swallowed before he passed it back to me without a word.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Caleb and Terry didn’t make it back,” Daryl stated after a brief moment of silence.

I felt my heart sink. “Fuck. The walkers get ‘em?”

For the first time since I’d brought up the subject, he looked over to me. When our gazes met, I could almost see the troubled thought forming behind those bright eyes of his. “So they say.”

“So who says?”

“Walter and Frank,” Daryl answered, pursing his lips in an uneasy frown.

“I take it you don’t believe them?” I asked, shuffling slightly closer to him across the thin mattress.

He averted his gaze for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the wall across from him as he scrunched his nose and chewed on his bottom lip. After a moment, he shook his head. “Nah. I don’t. Don’t think Rick does, neither.”

At that, he looked up to me in concern, as if he were worried his opinion would offend me or something. It was something I’d notice he did often whenever he said a bad word against one of the people from Woodbury.

“What about Malcom?” I asked.

Daryl gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “Stuck with the story.”

“The one you don’t believe?”

He nodded.

“So, what? You think Walter and Frank are lying about how those two died?” The thought made my head begin to ache.

“Don’t know.” He let out a harsh sigh before reaching out for the moonshine again. Once he’d taken another long sip, he handed it back to me and shuffled around so his entire body was facing me. “It don’t sit right. I know they’re your people but –“

“You’re my people, too, you moron,” I cut in, giving him a lightly pointed look. “If you think something isn’t right, Little Dixon, I’m inclined to listen.”

He snorted, averting his gaze and smiling slightly down into his own crossed legs.

“What puts you off about it?” I asked.

Daryl lifted his gaze back to me and sighed through his nose. “Walter came back with a black eye and bloody knuckles. Frank’s got Caleb’s gun. It ain’t fired a damn shot.” 

I pursed my lips, heart sinking further into my stomach. After a long swing from the moonshine jar, I cleared my throat and asked, “Alright, what’s the story?”

Daryl told me almost word for word what he recounted from their conversation with Walter, Frank, and Malcom earlier that day whilst I’d been in the library with Carol. Apparently, Rick had begun basically interrogating them the moment he’d seen them step off the back of the truck without two of their group members. Daryl had been passing nearby and had come to his friends aid when Walter had become heated.

They’d been immediately defensive when Rick had questioned the situation they’d described – a locked door, kicked open by Terry, that had held an entire house full of walkers. The undead had overrun Caleb and Terry. Walker and Frank had dealt with them from there.

“Why would Terry kick open a door with a bunch of walkers inside?” I asked, to which Daryl responded by lifting a brow and giving me a pointed look as if to say, “_He wouldn’t_”. A moment of silence passed whilst we looked at one another in thought. “Alright. Fine, I’ll admit. Little weird.”

“A little?” Daryl echoed incredulously.

“Yeah, a little,” I responded pointedly. “I know you think Walter and Frank had something to do with it, but I just can’t see the reasoning behind it. What would they get out of Terry’s death? The kid was harmless.”

Daryl shrugged a shoulder and sighed. “You know ‘em.”

“Stop saying that.”

He blinked up me in surprise. “What?”

“That I know them. I know that I know them, alright? You know what else I know? I know that they’re a pair of morons that think with little more than their fists. That they don’t have it in them to pre-meditate _one_ murder, let alone _two_.”

Daryl’s face contorted into a scowl at my words. He was really set on this whole idea, wasn’t he? It was as if he were already convinced Walter and Frank had murdered those two. I just couldn’t see it. Maybe because I hadn’t been the one to speak with them when they’d arrived back. Maybe because, as Daryl kept saying – I knew them. They were capable of violence and murder, sure. They’d been part of the group that had gunned down those army men on the roadside. But they’d never committed an atrocity without being ordered to. Honestly, I often wondered if those two could even think for themselves.

“It ain’t right, ‘sall I’m sayin’,” Daryl stated after a moment of pause, leaning back against the low metal railing at the end of my bunk.

“I get that,” I breathed. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow. See what’s up.”

Daryl nodded once and reached for the moonshine.

The two of us spent the next hour finishing off the rest of the jar and talking about nothing in particular. Once the jar was empty and our conversation finished, Daryl climbed down and made himself comfortable on the lower bunk. I allowed the soft sounds of his sleeping breaths to lull me into a dream.

#

I approached Malcom first.

His younger brother, Rodney, and I had gotten along quite well during our time at Woodbury, though Malcom and I had never really had a chance to get to know one another. He was reclusive and quiet, preferring to spend his time alongside his wife in their room, reading side by side in silence. His brother had been almost the polar opposite. Back at Woodbury, Rodney had been the resident “Moonshine God” – as Merle often put it. He was the one that had made the stuff for the rest of us, having managed to bribe Merle and I into going out and hunting down the equipment needed to build a homemade distillery.

Malcom’s wife had been part of the Governor’s farce of an army when he’d driven out to the prison on that fateful day. She’d been convinced Rick and the others were bent on Woodbury’s destruction and had wanted to help her people. I hadn’t known her very well, but she’d seemed like a nice woman. Malcom hadn’t quite been the same since she’d been gunned down.

I found him in the library.

He was sitting in the back corner with his nose in a book, zoned out completely from the world around him. There were a few others in the library, too. Carol was standing by the window, talking in hushed tones with Rita, one of the few mothers I knew would be on our side in regard to the "book club". When Carol saw me come in, she waved me over with a wide, excited grin, but I shook my head and pointed toward Malcom with a sullen expression.

“Gotta work,” I mouthed.

She frowned but nodded her understanding before turning back to Rita and continuing her animated conversation.

I sunk down into the seat opposite Malcom. If he noticed my sudden appearance, he didn’t let on, too absorbed in the novel gripped almost professionally in his bony hands.

“You’re not one of the people from Woodbury that think I’m the Devil incarnate, are you?” I asked plainly as I stared across the small gap between us at him, crossing one of my long legs over the other.

Malcom blinked as he looked up at me, as if he were clearing the remnants of an age-old mystery from before his eyes in order to gaze back into reality. “Can’t say I am.”

I grinned. “Good. That’s good.”

Malcom gave me a confused look, furrowing his bushy, grey brows. “Suppose it is.”

“I hope that it means we can have a friendly and honest discussion, you and I.” My grin lessened slightly into a polite smile as I leant back in my seat. “There’s a few things I need to clear up.”

A long sigh escaped through his wide-set nostrils as he placed the book face-down in his lap. “This is about Terry and Caleb, isn’t it?”

I nodded, growing somewhat sullen at the mention of their names. “Yes. It is.”

His frown deepened as he glanced from side to side as if making sure there was no one else within ear shot before looking back at me. The set of his shoulders was suddenly tense, hunched almost as he rested his arms alongside both his thighs. “It’s sad situation. Terry was so young, and Caleb was a nice gentleman. But this world is cruel. Those _things_ crueller still.”

“So, the biters got them?” I asked, cocking a questioning brow.

Malcom swallowed. “The biters got them, yes.”

My gaze narrowed. His tone was devoid of much emotion but there was a shakiness to it, an unease beneath his words. Even his body language seemed to indicate that he was nervous. As if there were something to hide. His arms lay flat across his thighs, but the tight, hunched set of his shoulders indicated he was struggling to keep them there. That he was putting thought into their positioning. I didn’t doubt that he either wanted to wrap them around himself or cross them over his chest – both of which were the most well-known indicators of untruthfulness. Something a reader like himself likely already knew.

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“Yesterday?” Malcom responded in confusion.

“No, I mean… Did it happen early on in your run? At the end? Did their deaths enable you and the other two a means to escape?”

Malcom straightened slightly. “No. No, of course not. Their deaths were tragic accidents, but we had a job to do.”

“Right. Sure. So, you didn’t leave after they died. You kept scavenging for supplies?”

Malcom nodded. He was almost visibly sweating now. I could hear his heartbeat steadily growing in rhythm. “Yes.”

“With a herd of biters in the house alongside you?”

He blinked once. Twice. “N-no. Walter and Frank dealt with them.”

“Well, I guess they had plenty of time during the drive back to meticulously polish those blades of theirs, then, didn’t they?” I remarked. “You did see how pristinely clean they were when you got back, right?”

Malcom swallowed again, his right leg beginning to bounce up and down in a nervous, unsettled motion. “I – I didn’t see, no.”

Likely because I actually had no fucking idea if their blades were clean or not. It was a tactic to see his response to my prodding at his story.

“I’d imagine the two of them went down fighting, though, huh?”

At this, Malcom answered almost without pause. “Yes.”

“Guns blazing?” I asked with a small grin.

Malcom returned my smile with a sad one of his own. “Of course.”

“I remember Caleb was one of my top students back when we had shooting practise at Woodbury.” I uncrossed my legs and relaxed into the seat. “Bet he nailed a few biters on his way out, huh?”

Malcom nodded, that sad smile of his faltering only slightly. The sweat on his brow was practically glinting in the grey light streaming in from the overcast sky through the windows along the wall beside us.

I let out a sigh as I pulled myself up into a standing position. “Well, I’ll leave you to your book, then. Cheers for the help.”

Malcom watched me with a confusion expression, glancing down at his book before speaking. “Yes. Of course. Anytime.”

#

“Alright, I believe you. Something’s up.”

Daryl looked up from the plate of venison in front of him and watched me with a curious expression as I slid into the empty side of the metal bench beside him. He was alone at the table, though the cellblock was far from empty. People moved in and out of the area constantly. Beth was sitting at the table across the room from us with her father, Judith balanced on her lap. I could see Michonne sitting on the staircase in the corridor of cells, running a metal file across the blade resting over her legs.

Daryl turned his body partially to face me, leaning one arm on the metal table beside him. “What changed your mind?”

“Malcom,” I answered. “He was lying to me.”

Daryl pursed his lips as he nodded.

“I still don’t understand why.” Turning to look at him, I gave Daryl a troubled frown and leant sideways against the table, almost mirroring his posture. “I know Caleb’s gun didn’t fire a shot and I know Walter came back with a black eye. I know Malcom was lying to me – that he was nervous about the questions I was asking. But why?”

Daryl shrugged. “Rick thinks some shady shit went down and Walter and Frank didn’t want no one talkin’.”

My frown only deepened. “What possible shady shit could have gone down? They were at a farm in the middle of nowhere.”

“Could’a been pocketing shit?”

“They wouldn’t kill for that,” I responded, though paused a moment after I’d spoken to grimace. “I don’t think.”

Daryl opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it and snapped it closed, clearing his throat instead.

I gave him an irritated look, cocking a brow. “You were about to say it again, weren’t you?”

Daryl chewed his bottom lip as he nodded. “I know you don’t like it, but it’s the damn truth. Rick and I don’t know those guys from shit. You do.”

A groan escaped me. I knew he was right. If anyone was going to figure out what really happened at that damn farm, it would likely be me. I was the only one partially on the inside here. Everyone at the prison worked together to make it a community but that didn’t mean people still didn’t harbour the Us-and-Them mentality. Daryl and Rick were “Them”. To some people, so was I. To others, I was still part of that metaphorical “Us”.

I hoped Walter and Frank were part of that group.

“Just… be careful, a’right?” Daryl said after a moment of pause. He looked at me with a concerned frown. “They might not like ya askin’ questions.”

I matched his worried pout with a bright grin of my own. “I can handle it.”

#

Turns out that no. No, I could not handle it.

Not very well, at least. The questioning went fine, really. They stuck by their story, keeping the details to a minimum. Terry kicked open the front door of the farmhouse and a flood of biters that had been locked inside came spilling out. Both he and Caleb had been at the front of their group and had tried to fight their way out, but ultimately, had been overrun. Walter and Frank – in a totally-not-believable depiction of their heroic antics – described how they’d fought through the herd and cleared them all out with the help of Caleb’s gun and their trusty knives. When I questioned why they didn’t use the M16’s Claire had supplied them with, they remarked on how close quarters the fight had been and left it at that.

I’d used the same trick I’d done with Malcom to get them to say Caleb’s gun had fired. Before I’d come to see them, I’d made a note to check it out. There was no smell of gunpowder lingering on the metallic barrel. All the bullets were still in the magazine. They were lying.

When I’d questioned them further, asking questions to clarify I had the order of events down right by reading them back backwards, they’d started to stumble. I was pretty sure they believed they recovered before I’d noticed, but… well, I’d noticed.

Later that day, once the sun had fallen beyond the horizon, I’d been preparing to head up to the watchtower to start my shift with Daryl when I heard shuffling feet behind me. Someone was following me through the cellblock, trying to remain silent. My ears picked up the sounds of their panted breaths as they struggled to keep themselves under control, their footfalls growing louder. I doubted whoever it was had much experience trying to sneak up on someone. Because they sucked at it.

Their friend at the end of the hallway, however… He was better.

I was so focused on the man behind me that I didn’t even bother paying attention to what was in front of me. Partially arrogance, partially my over-worked, tired brain not keeping up with me, I was practically corralled down the hall to the man lying in wait behind the corner.

Once I’d reached the hallway turn off, I had spun around to face the man following me, about ready to make a smart-ass comment when I heard the sound of an uneven footstep beside me. I reacted fast enough to dodge his first attempt to snatch me in his arms, ducking to the side, instinctively lifting my leg to kick the man in the side as he stumbled by me, having not expected me to move.

It didn’t particularly surprise me to see that it was Frank. Behind him, down the hall a few steps, was Walter. He charged forwards once he saw Frank’s attempts to nab me had failed, jumping over his fallen friend in order to make a move to grab me.

I dodged his outstretched hand easily, moving sideways and turning to watch him move past in on fluid motion before kicking him, too. He stumbled forwards until he collided with the door at the end of the hall, merely a few paces in front of me, and crashed to the ground.

Frank had regained his footing at this point, leaping up from a couched position behind me and managing to wrap his thick arms around my chest, trapping my hands by my sides. He was strong, too. Stronger than I honestly gave him credit for.

Still. I was stronger.

I slammed the heel of my boot against his foot at the same time as I slammed the back of my head against his nose. His arms lost their grip as he let out a grunt of pain, limping back a step as he lifted his hands to hold his now bleeding nose. I turned in place with my leg lifted, landing a solid roundhouse to the side of his head.

He fell back to the floor with a groan.

When I turned back to face Walter, he was already on his feet, holding his forehead with a grimace contorting his face. He looked at me from beneath his hand with narrowed eyes.

“Stupid bitch,” he hissed. “Couldn’t have just left it alone, huh?”

I immediately snapped to attention, my body straightening and my muscles tensing. “What did you do to them?”

Walter sneered. “Like I’m gonna tell you, traitor.”

I blinked. “Traitor? That’s a bit rude, man. What did I do to y–”

He launched himself at me before I could finish my question. His fist swung toward me, but I ducked beneath it, reaching out to snatch his upper arm whilst kicking the back of his knee. Walter lost his balance and fell to the floor.

I bent his arm back and pushed it against his back, forcing him all the way to the ground as I placed my own knee against the small of his back.

“Tell me what you did, asshole,” I hissed. “And maybe I won’t snap it off.”

Walter made a whimpering sound as he tried to struggle against my grip. I bent his arm further, making him cry out in pain, snot beginning to trickle from his thin, crooked nose. “O-okay! Okay! Stop, stop! Please!”

I glanced across to where Frank lay unconscious on the floor to my right before letting out a sigh and letting go of Walter’s arm. He made a sound of relief before slowly climbing up to his feet, lifting his hands in a surrendering gesture as he turned to face me.

Walter didn’t speak for a long moment, waiting until he caught his breath before opening his mouth. “Look, we didn’t mean to hurt the kid, alright?”

My anger overrode my sense of logic in that moment. I leapt forwards and slammed my knuckle into Walter’s face. His head snapped back, and he stumbled into the wall behind him with a loud curse. “Why, then? Why did you kill him?”

“He got between us and Caleb,” Walter answered in a painful whimper. “The old man was the target.”

I felt my blood go cold for a moment at his particular use of language. Referring to Caleb as a “target” struck something inside me that left my stomach turning. “For what fucking purpose, Walter? Did someone pay you – favours, food, water?”

Walter chewed the inside of his lower lip as he looked toward the floor by my feet, as if he were unable to meet my cold gaze. He opened and closed his month again and again, struggling to come up with a response.

I let out a growl of irritation and stepped forward once again, grabbing Walter by the front of his shirt, pulling him slightly forward before slamming six-foot-three frame back against the wall. He looked down at me in horrified surprise, grey eyes wide and mouth hanging open. His hands remained raised in that surrendering gesture as I stood within his personal space and glared up at him. “Tell me.”

“I – I can’t,” Walter stuttered.

I cocked a brow and gave him a wide, mad grin. “You sure? Who are you more afraid of right now – me, or the one who gave the order?”

Before he could answer, the sound of Frank’s groans cut through the tension between us. The hulking man slowly got up onto his hands and knees, looking up through narrowed eyes at me, where I stood with Walter’s shirt gripped tightly in my right hand.

“You’d best say down there,” I remarked.

Frank scoffed as he rose back up onto his feet.

I shook my head at him in mock disappointment before throwing Walter back into the wall and leapt across the space between Frank and I. The large man swung his meaty fist at me, but once again, I slid to the side, dodging around the punch and coming to a stop behind him. My boot landed on the small of his back, sending him sprawling forwards, crashing into the wall beside Walter. He spun around with a growl and reached for me again. I smacked his forearm away with my left hand, using my right to slam my palm up, beneath his chin. His head cracked back, unbalancing him, so I lowered myself down and swept his legs out from beneath him. When he fell to the floor this time, I pressed my boot against his throat, looking down at him with a cocked brow.

“Get the picture now, Frankie?” I asked with a grin.

He glared up at me. There was a bruise rapidly forming around the pressure wound on his right cheekbone and blood had begun to pool around his nostrils.

Behind me, Walter was standing, still against the wall, watching with furrowed brows and a deep frown. “Jacques, take it easy, okay?” Walter panted, lifting his hands once again.

I cocked a brow at him over my shoulder. “Really, dude? You try to corral me into a trap, and you want _me_ to take it easy?”

He grimaced. “Look, we can talk it out, a’right?”

I pressed my boot a little harder against Frank’s throat, making him cough. His hands came up to grip at my ankle, trying to pull my foot away from him, but my strength outweighed his exhausted efforts. “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Walter glanced down at Frank before meeting my narrowed gaze, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “It’s complicated. We didn’t wanna hurt the kid, okay? That wasn’t meant to happen.”

“I don’t care if it wasn’t meant to happen, Walt, it fucking happened.” My upper lip curled over my teeth in a snarl. “What I want to know is why?”

“The kid tried to stop us,” Walter answered, his voice shaken. “He just got in the way, man.”

Again, I pressed my boot harder against Frank’s throat. He sputtered and began to flail his arms slightly as the air was cut off from his lungs. “Just got in the way, huh?” I echoed coldly. “Kind of like how my foots in the way of Frank’s airways right now?”

Walter took a panicked stepped forward, hands raised, eyes wide. “Jacques, stop! Let him go!”

“Tell me who gave you the order!” I growled.

Walter shook his head.

Frank’s spluttering coughs began to sound more like the gurgling of a biter as I pressed harder. I could hear the bones at the base of his neck beginning to groan.

“Tell me! I know you didn’t do this alone!” I yelled.

“Claire!” Walter screamed in panic. “It was Claire!”

The shock of his answer almost literally rocked me off my feet. My foot came off Frank’s throat, but I barely even heard his haggard gasps for air over the static sound of my own blood in my ears. Dozens of theories and reasonings ran through my head at once, tangling together into a shroud that blanketed my senses and brought me to a screeching halt.

With me notably dazed, Walter took his chance. He charged me, catching me off-guard enough to actually land a hit. His knuckle struck the side of my face, lashing my head partially to the side and splitting the lower corner of my lip against my tooth. The pain broke me free of my slight daze, alighting that fire of rage inside me so completely that, when he pulled back to take another swing, I caught his fist mid-air with enough force to crunch his knuckles.

He let out a howl of pain as I closed my hand around his clenched fist, looking up at him with a heated glare, my lip curled up over my teeth in a hideous sneer. After a brief moment, when the smell of searing flesh began to reach my nose, I blinked away the sudden overwhelming anger and let his hand free.

Walter snatched it back, whimpering as he held it to his chest. There were burn marks coating the skin where my fingers had been, four elongated lines of reddened, blistered skin along the back of his hand.

_Shit_.

He looked down at his hand in muted shock, glancing back up at me with wide, fearful eyes, his brows drawn down in confusion. Before he had a chance to react further, I leapt forward and struck him in the side of his head with my fist, knocking him to the ground.

Frank was still sputtering and gasping for breath. He hadn’t seen what I’d done to Walter yet, so I left him to his miserable attempts to pull in air whilst I crouched beside Walter’s unconscious form. Keeping half an eye on the other man, I reached out and took Walter’s injured hand in one of my own.

I was far from a Healer. It took obscene amounts of concentration for me to actively will my magic to take any kind of medicinal form for anything that wasn’t my own body. Had I ever actually gotten around to being taught how to use restoration magic instead of haphazardly trying to figure it out for myself, I’d probably be better at it. But I had only learnt the truth of what I was, like, six years ago. And it hadn’t been an entirely pleasant experience for me, either. I’d been forced to learn how to use my magic as a weapon more than anything else. Learning to fight took priority.

_Story of my life_.

Healing was, however, one of the harder forms of magic to learn. It required a rather innate knowledge of the body, much like doctoring in general. I had a decent knowledge of human anatomy, of course. It was part of the job, knowing where best to strike. It was ironic, in a way, that my – admittedly limited – healing ability came from the knowledge I’d acquired from killing people for a living.

Thankfully, it was enough. The blisters on Walter’s hands began to fade quickly as I felt that deep, tugging sensation at the base of my chest that I often associated with the use of magic. It was like a muscle, pulling from an almost nameless place inside me. The redness of his skin faded slowly, though I allowed the bones of his knuckles to remain shattered inside his fist.

I had been just about to pull my hand away when the door to the outside burst open.

The suddenness of the sound made me jump slightly. I turned to look, still crouched over Walter’s fallen form, to see Daryl standing in the now-open doorway beside me.

Slowly, I rose with my hands lifted as Daryl’s gaze locked on me, a question in his eyes.

I opened my mouth to respond, but the sound of Frank’s hoarse voice cut me off before I could.

“Bitch jumped us!” he cried. Or, well… Tried to cry. His voice sounded almost as if I’d actually damaged his vocal cords. “Almost goddamn _killed_ me!”

I twisted my head to gaze at him over my shoulder with an incredulous look before turning back to Daryl. He was surveying the hall with furrowed brows but when his gaze landed back on me – more specifically, on the blood that had trickled partially down my chin from the wide split in my lower lip – his entire face changed.

Despite the fact one of these men were unconscious and the other looked like he’d just gone three rounds with goddamn Mayweather, Daryl’s expression contorted into a snarl as he launched himself forwards, toward Frank.

“You touch her?!” he yelled as he tried to storm past me, an accusatory finger thrust toward Frank.

I reached out with one arm to stop him, catching him across the chest. “Daryl, don’t. It’s done.”

He was breathing heavily as he glared up at Frank from beside me, though at least he’d allowed me to act as a blockade between the two of them. The other man, who towered over the both of us, looked as if he were about ready to bolt.

“Jesus, dude. _Go_ already,” I hissed at him.

Frank wasted no time whatsoever. Leaving his friend unconscious in the hallway, the towering man turned on his heel and ran back into the cellblock.

Daryl watched him leaving with a scowl before turning toward me, harsh look replaced by one of soft concern. “The hell happened?”

“You were right,” I said with an unamused chuckle, wiping the blood from my chin. “They didn’t like being questioned.”

He shook his head, frowning deeply as his eyes dropped down to the crimson corner of my lip. “You a’right?”

“I’m not the one unconscious,” I remarked, turning to look down at Walter’s still form on the ground behind me. My lips pursed in thought as I stared down at him, remembering his words with a cold sense of trepidation forming in the pit of my stomach. “Claire had something to do with this,” I said softly, turning back to look at Daryl.

His brows rose slightly, but he didn’t question me. Instead, he lifted a hand and placed it on the small of my back, beginning to escort me toward the door to the outside.

I glanced down at Walter as we passed, at the slow rise and fall of his breath, hearing the soft sound of his steady heartbeat. “Should we –“

“Leave him,” Daryl scoffed. “Deserves it.”

I didn’t argue that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! As always, don't hesitate to let me know!
> 
> And, as an Aussie, I want to thank everyone that has done something to send aid to our firefighters and those currently being affected by the devastating bush fires ripping through our country. Even if that something is just reblogging a post or spreading the word. Thank you.
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	22. The Shadow of Manipulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the altercation with Walter and Frank, Synnove is forced to deal with the consequences as an unseen plot begins to unfold itself before her.

Allowing the situation to go untouched for the remainder of the night left an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. But, really? What were we supposed to do?

It was past midnight by this point. Almost everyone was asleep. Rick included, likely alongside his son and daughter – a scene I didn’t particularly want to interrupt. I knew Claire slept in the other cell block, along with the majority of the people from Woodbury. In fact, I knew exactly where she laid her head at night. I’d made it almost a point to find out. But, still. Storming in there and confronting her right now, without really a shred of evidence beside a panicked admission by a man currently lying unconscious in a hallway, would not likely go down very well.

No. Despite how much we wanted to, both Daryl and I agreed it was best that we just… went back on watch and waited until morning.

He had practically ordered me to sleep the moment we got up there, gently pushing me toward the mattress set up in the corner of the watchtower’s indoor area whilst he marched out toward the balcony. I’d usually argue or make some kind of smart-ass remark about him getting grumpy without sleep, but tonight… I was too exhausted. The fight, the lack of sleep the night before, the magic use… It had taken it out of me.

When I awoke, it was morning. He’d let me sleep the entire night. I was about ready to give him a mouthful about it when I realized that I’d… actually slept. Without nightmare or interruption. And God, did it feel good.

He’d shaken me awake at first light, having noticed Rick making his way from the cell block toward the fields to begin his daily Farmer-Rick routine, as he so often did.

Daryl and I went down to the fields to meet him.

I was halfway through explaining what had happened last night and expressing my agreement of his concerns that Walker and Frank were up to something shady, when the bomb dropped. From the inner gate, a loud commotion drew our attention away from the conversation.

“There she is! The murderer!” Claire yelled, pointing in our direction with that kind of self-important scowl only white-straight-middle-aged women could really master.

The crowd of indignant sycophants following along behind her let out a chorus of yells, all of which blended together into a single, unpleasant sound. They were marching down the pathway that cut through the fields, faces contorted into almost matching expressions of anger and disdain.

“Ah, an angry mob,” I remarked, cocking out my hip as I crossed my arms over my chest, grinning in amusement. “Haven’t seen one of them for a while.” 

Rick gave me a pointed look, brow raised, before looking back toward Claire with a troubled expression.

Daryl took an unsubtle, protective step partially in front of me, sliding his boot along the dirt of the pathway as he did so.

“I told you what would happen, killer!” Claire yelled out from her place at the front of the pack. “We won’t stand by while you throw about accusations and murder those who disagree with you!”

I blinked, my grin turning to a confused but still slightly amused smile. “What in the ever-loving fuck are you talking about?”

Claire and her little herd of angry civilians came to a stop a few paces away from where Rick, Daryl and I were standing. She stepped forward, breaking slightly way from the pack, and pointed an accusatory finger in my direction. “You killed Walter last night.”

My head jerked back slightly in surprise. I felt Daryl stiffen beside me. “What?”

“Don’t lie to me, you little psychopath,” Claire hissed. “I warned you! I warned all of you she wasn’t to be trusted!”

Without meaning to, I snorted a laugh, shaking my head in disbelief. “Oh, my fucking God. You’re kidding me, right? This is a joke.”

“You think murdering people for defending me against your disgusting lies… is funny?” Claire asked, eyes narrowed, tongue running along her upper teeth as she looked at me in revulsion.

Rick stepped forward, lifting a hand as if in attempt to diffuse the situation. “Take it easy. Let’s talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Claire snapped. “She killed Walter. One of our own people, right in these halls.”

“Walter is not dead,” I stated with a shake of my head.

Claire tilted her head to the side. I recognised the motion. It was one she used often during council meetings, especially when she thought she was about to deliver the killing blow during one of our heated debates. “Oh, so you’re saying you didn’t attack him in the hallway last night?”

“N –“ My throat closed up. The word wouldn’t come out. Because it was a lie. I had attacked Walter last night. Of course, he’d attacked first, but that didn’t change the facts. I cleared my throat and gave her a small, polite smile. “There _may_ have been an altercation.”

The people gathered behind Claire began to whisper loudly amongst themselves. With my enhanced hearing, I caught a sentence or two – neither of which sounded particularly in my favour.

Quickly, I raised my voice to add, “A _mutual_ altercation. Which he and Frank both started!”

“And now she’s going with the “self-defence” plea?” Claire scoffed. “How original.”

“Shut your damn mouth,” Daryl snapped.

Claire turned to him, looking about ready to throw hands with the glaring redneck, when Rick stepped forward yet again.

“Synnove was just speaking about it with me,” he explained in a diplomatic tone. “She says they followed her down the hall while she was on her way to the watchtower and jumped her.”

“That’s a damn lie!” a voice from near the back of the crowd shouted.

Frank, black-eyed and bloodied, pushed his way toward the front. He had a puncture mark on his right cheek, one that I distinctly remembered giving him, and a dark bruise at the base of his throat. But that wasn’t all. There were a series of almost freshly made cuts across his arms and face that I knew for a fact had not come from me.

I also knew, merely from a glance, that they were defensive wounds.

“Bitch tried to kill me, too!” he yelled, which made the gathering once again begin to yell harshly out at me.

“Oh, calm down, Franklin,” I sneered. “Try not to choke on your bullshit.”

Rick stepped in front of me, then, giving me a warning look before turning to face Claire fully. “Do you have any proof?”

Claire let out an incredulous snort as she gestured towards Frank. “Look at him! How much more proof do you need?”

Frank scowled at me, pointing his bloodied arm at my hip. “She tried to cut me up!”

I looked down at the pair of knives sheathed by my sides and glanced back up with a cocked brow. Without a word, I drew both weapons and displayed their glinting, silver, clean blades.

Claire cocked a brow. “You’ve had plenty of time to polish them,” she stated simply, almost word-for-word what I’d said to Malcom about Frank and Walter yesterday.

I snorted, smiling without humour as I looked to the ground and muttered, “Ah, irony.” 

“You don’t know that,” Rick responded to Claire’s remark. “Daryl’s been with her all night. He can testify her innocence.”

“You expect us to believe he wouldn’t lie for her?” Claire snapped, giving Daryl a judgemental look.

I felt my shoulders tighten as I fought against the urge to slap her.

Daryl just snorted, jerking his chin at Frank. “Ain’t no proof _he_ ain’t lyin’ for _you_.”

Claire’s nostrils flared. “How dare you? I am trying to protect our people from this monster! While you stand beside her and enable her!”

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Oh, my God! Walter isn’t even dead, why are we still arguing?”

“Then why did poor Scott and Mara find him wandering the hall as a biter?” Claire asked with a deep scowl.

From behind her, the two aforementioned members of the group stepped partially forward and nodded their confirmation. I felt my blood go cold, my brows pulling down into a confused frown as I shared a look with Daryl.

It wasn’t right… Something wasn’t right here. Walter had not been dead when Daryl and I had left him there. I knew it, as well as I knew the sun was shining in the sky above us. Except, I knew it because healing magic doesn’t work on dead humans. Because my enhanced ears had picked up on the sound of his steady heartbeat.

And neither of those reasons were things I could exactly admit to.

“Well, shit,” I stated absently.

Frank spat a wad of blood and phlegm at my feet, which spurred Daryl into launching himself toward the man. Thankfully, Rick was quick enough to latch onto his upper arm before he could close the distance between himself and Frank.

I clenched my jaw as Rick pulled Daryl back a few steps, hissing something in his ear. Reaching out to take hold of the angered man by the elbow, I yanked him into place beside me, allowing Rick to loosen his grip and turn to look back at Claire and Frank.

Daryl was breathing heavily through his nose, chest rising and falling as he glared over Rick’s shoulder at Frank, grinding his teeth in anger. I squeezed his elbow, which made him glance side-long at me, meeting my warning look with a frustrated frown.

I appreciated his defence. Really, I did. But he was only going to get himself in trouble alongside me if he kept it up.

“All we have here are accusations,” Rick stated simply.

“And a dead man,” Claire added, cocking a thin brow.

Rick nodded once, his lips pursed in a troubled frown. He glanced over his shoulder at both Daryl and I before facing the mob once again, hand still partially raised. “We’ll take it to the council and get to the bottom of this.”

Claire scoffed. “I am the council,” she stated simply.

I felt my brows rise at the sheer arrogance that laced her words as Rick tilted his head to regard her.

“You’re on the council, you mean?” he asked, though even I could tell from his tone that he didn’t believe that was what she had meant at all.

“Of course.” She glanced to me. “We’ll convene the council. In the meantime, however, I want her to come with me.”

“Like hell,” Daryl spat the same time I snorted in disbelief.

Rick once again looked over his shoulder at me, brows deeply furrowed in a thoughtful frown, eyes troubled as they gazed back at me. I knew just from that look alone that he wanted anything else but to agree with her, to allow her to take me away, but felt as if he were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“I can’t allow that,” he finally said in a soft voice with a shake of his head, looking back in her direction.

“She cannot be allowed to roam free after murdering a man!” Claire yelled, aghast.

Funny. She’d said almost exactly the same thing after I’d admitted to killing Marcus. Phil had stood up for me, vouched for my claim of self-defence. Would Rick do the same?

“You were a sheriff,” Claire continued, staring at Rick in exasperated frustration. “Would you allow your main suspect to walk freely amongst the people? Or would you have them put behind bars?”

“Good thing we live in a prison, then, isn’t it?” I remarked, unable to stop myself.

Everyone looked at me with near matching unamused expressions.

I sighed, letting go of Daryl as I lifted both my hands in a surrendering gesture. “Look, if it’ll make you all feel better, I’ll go along with it.”

Daryl whirled to face me, wide eyed and scowling. He opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, but I gave him a side-long look.

“It’s the smart thing to do,” I whispered to him.

He looked like he disagreed, but snapped his mouth closed, anyway. Even Rick looked as if he had half a thought to argue, too, but knew better than to start now, in front of Claire and the others.

Claire herself seemed surprised by my agreement. She blinked a few times, shaking her head slightly before taking half a step forward and regarding me with suspicion. “Really?”

“Really.” I grinned at her.

“Well, then,” she began somewhat shakily, obviously put off by my lack of argument. She waved toward the towering man beside her, gesturing to me with her other hand. “Frank?”

Frank nodded and stepped forwards, giving me a shit-eating smirk once he was out of view of Rick and Claire’s brain-washed followers. He reached out for my hands, pulling a small roll of rope from the back of his belt strap and began winding it around my wrists.

“Well,” I remarked with a cold smile. “Look who came prepared.”

Daryl stood by, hands curled into fists, shoulders tense. He watched Frank’s every movement around me with the keen eyes of a hunter. Beside him, Rick was standing with a hand on his hip, a frown pulling down the corners of his lips.

I let Frank begin to haul me away, following along behind Claire and her sycophants back up the pathway toward the cell blocks. As soon as they both believed we were all out of ear shot, I heard Rick turn to Daryl and say, “We’ll get her out of it.”

“It’s damn bullshit,” he growled in response. “She was with me.”

“I know,” Rick said softly. “I know.”

#

Turns out, Claire had not actually planned on me agreeing to come along.

Which amused me to no end.

However, she and Frank didn’t let the others know that, of course. They figured out what to do with me rather quickly, shoving me into the corner cells in the main room of the cell block and slamming the door shut in my face.

The door that had no key. And therefore, could not be locked.

I knew she did it for appearance more than anything, making it look as if I were safely locked away, despite the fact I could literally walk out of that cell whenever the notion took me. But, I wouldn’t. I’d play along for now. Take a peek behind the curtain for as long as I had to in order to overhear something incriminating.

People gathered in the cell block, curiously gazing in through the mesh-like metal wall encasing me with varying expressions of confusion and outright amusement. Those who looked more troubled than anything were the faces I made sure to remember. They weren’t buying Claire’s bullshit.

One of those faces, I was glad to see, belonged to Tyreese. He gazed through the cell wall at me with a deeply set, troubled frown. Beside him stood Karen, who looked equally ill at ease with my current imprisonment, but neither rose up to speak.

I understood their hesitation. They were members of the council; raising their voices prematurely might only make things worse. There would be a chance for them to say their piece and they knew it.

I was almost thankful they didn’t speak up. There was a reason behind my decision to play along and their arguments toward my current captivity would only hinder my plans.

It took a good hour before people began to settle down. Groups formed around the metal tables scattered about the room, people left to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. Most were needed elsewhere for their daily jobs, such as cooking or laundry. By the time the sun had risen high enough to cast a stream of light through the upper windows of the cell block, the room was practically empty bar a group of five at the furthest table, Frank, and Claire herself.

It was then that my plan began to pay off. Both she and Frank were sitting on the staircase through the barred door that lead to the corridor of cells in front of me. I imagined they believed they were a safe distance away to begin talking in hushed tones about sensitive topics.

They were wrong.

I did my best to remain casually seated on the hard, concrete slab that acted as a bench within the cell, one leg draped over the other, my back pressed against the wall as I leant casually with my arms folded across my chest. My gaze remained fixed on the shadowy corner of my cell, away from Claire and Frank, and I schooled my expression into one of ignorant boredom.

“… I don’t care, Franklin. You both told me you could handle her,” Claire was saying in a harsh whisper.

Frank’s shoulders hunched somewhat, as if in shame. “Bitch don’t fight fair.”

“Bullshit,” Claire spat.

_Wow, Claire, how uncivilised._

“She fights better than you. Did I not warn you that the two of you wouldn’t be enough? She took down Marcus, Zach, and Luke _at once_. That _woman_ is not like the rest of us. I don’t understand it, but I can feel it in my bones. This life of violence… I don’t think the world’s changed much for her.”

Damn. There really was nothing like getting called out by your enemy, was there? I hated to admit to myself that she kind of had a point, but it was the truth. My world had changed, sure, but the fundamentals scarcely had. I was still a creature of blood and death and destruction. Killing was still one of the realities of this world, only now it extended far beyond the shadows of criminality. There were no dollars, no pounds, or yen, or rupee. Death was the main currency and I was the richest sonofabitch this side of sanity.

“Merle used to get drunk and call her his little Grim Reaper,” Frank unhelpfully offered her.

I had to bite back a smile at that, my chest squeezing slightly at the memory.

“Even that man knew there was something off about her,” Claire answered in a thoughtful tone. “He might have been okay with it, but I’m not. She’s a danger to us all.”

_I’m the only motherfucker that’ll keep you _out _of danger, you stupid – _

“Why can’t we just kill her?” Frank asked.

Claire scoffed. “Firstly, we’d need plausible deniability. I am not allowing her to endanger my position on the council, even after she’s dead.”

It really was too bad that these people had no idea about the reality of the world they lived in. I wondered if the fact that there was a very real possibility I would be able to haunt her ass from beyond the grave would change her tune. Oh, the things I would do. I had to force myself not to smile at the thought.

“Secondly,” Claire continued, “it would have to seem like an accident or an unrelated event, separate from my _very public _distaste for her. And thirdly, do you honestly think it would be _that _easy?”

There was a slight pause, as if Frank had opened his mouth in order to say something, only to be interrupted by Claire a second later.

“This is the same woman that brought both you and Walter to your knees,” she spat. “The same woman that won every single Game Night she ever participated in, including the ones against Sean and Martinez, and those two boys were much more capable than anyone I could name here.”

“What about Tyreese?” Frank suggested. “He was a football player, right?”

Silence settled, during which I could only imagine the look Claire was giving the man sitting beside her in that moment. Scathing, unabashed exasperation. She wasn’t exactly shy about letting people know she thought they were morons.

“You are ex-military and you think a glorified entertainer would do better than you could?” Claire asked him, being sure to speak slowly. “Besides,” she continued before he had a chance to respond. “Ever since that damn farm he’s been on Team Synnove, just like everyone else. Doesn’t speak much toward the collective intelligence here.”

Oh, my God. She was horrible. Surely, if I murdered her right here and now, no one would blame me, right?

Unfortunately, though, I knew that – logically – killing her in such a manner would only serve in validating her point. And I would rather die than prove that narcissistic bitch right.

“So… We can’t kill her?” Frank asked, sounding as if he’d gotten lost somewhere between the start of the conversation and halfway through it.

Claire blew out an exasperated sigh through her nose. “No. We can’t. Not yet.”

My eyes narrowed as I stared blankly at the wall beside me, hands twitching slightly as I fought to restrain the urge to look in their direction.

“That’s why we undermine her,” Claire continued. “Every turn she takes, we make it the wrong one. We push and we push until she inevitably snaps and proves to everyone that she is exactly the kind of monster I’ve been warning them about.”

Frank snorted. “I think you underestimate her patience.”

I blinked in surprise, unable to stop my brows from rising at the unexpected praise from the unexpected source.

“She put up with Merle’s bullshit for months,” he added after a moment.

“You _over_estimate her patience,” Claire answered haughtily. “She’s volatile and hot-headed. Even reckless, at times. We push hard enough, she’ll push back.”

Frank sighed through his teeth. “Yeah. And she’ll push back _harder_.”

“Exactly. And everyone will see her for the unhinged psychopath she truly is.” Claire sounded almost proud of herself for her “fool-proof” plan. I could practically visualise her patting herself on the back. “Some already believe she was behind Walter’s death. That, combined with the knowledge of what she did to Marcus and how easily she turned on Woodbury… It won’t take much more to pull people to my side.”

“The Governor’s side, you mean?” Frank asked.

I felt my entire body stiffen. My blood began to run cold through my vines, sending a violent chill down my spine. Surely, that wasn’t what this was about? Claire despised that man.

“Of course, Franklin,” Claire answered, though her voice was already distracted.

The oily sensation of her gaze upon my skin almost made me shudder, but I managed to suppress it, sliding myself further down against the back wall to appear even more disinterested in my surroundings.

“He’ll appreciate what we’ve done for him, when he returns,” Claire said, her voice even lower than it had been before. “Ostracising the one who betrayed him, undermining the leadership efforts of the Prison-folk that cast him aside.”

“We’ll be his new right hands,” Frank said gleefully.

Bile rose in my throat. I was going to be fucking sick. This could not be real. I was not hearing this.

My mind spun, her words replaying themselves over and over in my mind. It didn’t make any sense, did it? Why would she advocate for a man she hated, perhaps even more than me? And I knew she hated that man; I goddamn _knew_ it. It was written in her eyes every time his name was spoken, written across the hard set of her jaw and twisted grimace.

I focused as hard as I possibly could on keeping my breathing steady, not allowing the rapidly burning sensation of anger tare its way free from the pit of my stomach.

It was a fucking miracle that I remained outwardly calm. I could feel my hands shaking with the effort it was taking not to move, but it was a slight enough movement that neither Claire nor Frank would be able to spot it from where they sat.

The two of them continued to talk for another handful of minutes, though it diverted from their previous conversation into a territory of less importance. I barely heard their voices anymore, too caught up in my own mind. Trying to sort through the information I already knew with the information I’d just learnt.

Hours passed by in seemingly a blink as I sat there, hunched over and staring at the floor, trying to understand the truth behind my current predicament. Perhaps it was arrogant of me to assume it was nothing more than a personal vendetta. There were other factors coming into play here. But what were they? And what did the Governor have to do with it? Or Walter? Or Caleb?

God. My head hurt.

Thankfully, before I could sufficiently give myself a migraine, a commotion by the entryway snatched my attention away from my inner thoughts.

Maggie came bursting into the cell block, Carol in tow behind her, and stormed down the concrete steps into the main area. She ignored the startled group of gossips in the corner, making her way to the edge of my cell and peering through the mesh wall at me with an outraged look on her pretty face.

“What the hell is this?” Maggie demanded.

Carol came up behind her, peering through the wire squares between us with a perplexed frown. “Daryl said you agreed to this?”

I opened my mouth to answer their questions, but Claire had already made her way over to us, indignant scowl on her face.

“She is here of her own volition,” she crisply announced, marching over to stand in front of the unlocked door to my cell. “I’m not holding her against her will. She knows what she has done.”

Maggie scoffed. “I don’t believe it for a minute. Let her out. Now.”

Claire waved a dismissive hand. “She’s free to leave whenever she wants.”

Carol’s eyes had narrowed the moment Claire came into her line of sight and she stepped forward, passing Maggie’s stiff-shouldered form. “Good,” she said, keeping her tone relatively pleasant despite the look of distaste on her face. “Then, let’s go.”

She turned to look at me expectantly.

I remained seated for a few moments, glancing between the three of them with my lips pressed in a hard line as I contemplated the pros and cons. On one hand, there was more I could learn from eavesdropping. There were so many blank spaces in my understanding of what was going on here that it would be beneficial to stick around and find out more. However, what I had already learnt warranted sharing, especially with Rick and Daryl – but, in order to do that, I’d need to leave.

Leaving now would also likely only serve to solidify my guilt in the eyes of the people Claire had manipulated to her side. Though, I had to believe that the truth of the situation would be enough to convince them otherwise when it came out, whether I stayed here now or not.

Both Maggie and Carol stood patently by whilst I contemplated these things silently, looking between them with a pursed lipped frown.

“How about a compromise?” I asked after a brief moment, a question that made Claire whip her head around to regard me with a scowl.

“You’re in no position to negotiate with me,” she snapped.

“Maybe not, but they are,” I remarked, nodding toward the two surprisingly imposing women standing in front of her. “The deal’s this – I’ll go with them, but they will keep me locked up in the corner cage in that cell block until my fate’s been decided.”

Claire’s gaze stayed on me for a long moment before she barked an unamused laugh. “Why would I agree to that?”

I smiled slowly, flicking my gaze toward the gossipers still gathered in the corner that had turned in our direction to listen in, before looking back to Claire. “Because at least _that _cage has a lock.”

A muscle in Claire’s jaw tensed as the sound of my raised voice echoed through the room. I didn’t need to have enhanced hearing to understand what those five in the corner were whispering to themselves about _now_, and neither did Claire. She knew I’d just outmanoeuvred her. And, if her scathing snarl in my direction was of any indication, she fucking _hated it_.

If only to solidify my point with some well-earned theatrics, I pushed myself up onto my feet and crossed the cell, reaching out to push the cage door open with little effort.

A small gasp escaped one of the girls in the corner, which made me grin.

Claire stepped back in order to allow me room to step out of the cage itself, scowling the entire time. I made sure to hold eye contact with her until I was well and truly outside the cell, much to the horror of the poor group in the corner.

“So, what do you say, Clairy?” I asked, tilting my head to the side with a smug smirk. “Deal?”

She turned her head none-too-subtly to the side in order to gauge the reactions of the group of onlookers before looking back at me and forcing a polite smile. “Alright. I trust you will be fine with me tagging along. To ensure you uphold your end of the bargain, of course?”

A soul-deep sense of anger rose up in my faster than I could catch it. It was merely a millisecond, but I knew Claire had caught the emotion registering on my face before I could restrain my expression back to one of smug victory. As one of the fae, there was something inherently insulting about having one’s word questioned.

“Come along, then,” I responded through clenched teeth.

Both Maggie and Carol kept step beside me as we made our way back toward C-Block. I could _feel_ sense the anger radiating off Claire as she toddled along behind us which only increased the moment we stepped foot into the cell block and were greeted by grinning faces. When they spotted her stepping through the door, however, their smiles faded into looks of perplexed concern.

I didn’t say anything as Maggie and Carol led me toward the cage door in the corner.

“Rick?” Maggie asked, holding out her hand expectantly.

It took him a moment to register what she was asking. He blinked once before frowning, turning to look between me and Claire. “This is what you want?”

“Part of the deal,” I answered.

He didn’t look all too happy about it – honestly, none of them did – but he walked up to Maggie and handed her the set of keys on his belt without another word.

She unlocked the cage door and pulled it open, turning to look at me with a deep frown.

I stepped inside. Maggie closed and locked the door behind me.

“Okay. I’m in. You can leave now.” I gave Claire a pointed look.

She snorted. “Not without the key, I’m not. Whose to say you won’t just open it back up when I leave?”

I ground my teeth together, doing my best to keep my temper in check as I looked toward Maggie and gave her an affirmative nod. She took the single key for the cage off the ring and tossed it none-too-gently at Claire, who only barely managed to catch it.

Daryl, who had been hanging back by the hallway entrance, came up to stand by the cage door, leaning sideways against the metal meshing and silently staring her down until she began to visibly shy away.

It was clear that she was incredibly uncomfortable here, under all the harsh eyes of those whose loyalty she couldn’t manipulate into her pocket. Slowly, she began to back up, stepping cautiously toward the exit.

Michonne, who had been sitting on one of the metal tables, watching in silence, rose to her feet as Claire passed by. Despite the little difference in their height, she seemed to almost tower over her.

Rick, Carol, Maggie, and Glenn all stood by and watched silently until Claire had cleared the bottom step at the entryway. Even Beth was eyeing the thin woman as she ascended the stairs toward the doorway, cradling Judith in her arms, who just happened to be the only one not staring menacingly at Claire as she left the cell block.

Once she was well and truly gone, it was as if everyone took a collective breath of relief and the tension seeped out of the room, seeming to almost physically lighten the air around us.

Honestly, the entire thing had been a show of support I hadn’t quite expected. It left me feeling oddly elated, despite the frustrating situation, and I couldn’t help but find myself smiling up at the concerned faces of the people I’d come to call friends.

“The hell you grinnin’ ‘bout?” Daryl asked. He seemed to be the only one whose shoulders had remained tense, even after Claire had left the room. “She took the damn keys.”

My grin slowly moved from him toward Maggie. “God, that bitch sucks at this,” I remarked with a chuckle.

Maggie shared my amusement, turning her sweet smile back at the confused Daryl and lifting the ring of keys still in her hand

“She took the cage key,” Maggie explained. “But she didn’t take the master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's hear your votes - (?)/10 how much do you want someone to straight up murder Claire?
> 
> Okay, okay. Relax. I just want to once again say thank you for reading. I honestly hope you enjoyed this chapter and promise that, shortly, we will be venturing into the realm of Season 4. When that happens, I'll be updating the chapter that deviated with the chapter S4 starts in so people can skip the "filler chapters" if they wish. 
> 
> Again, thank you. Please, don't forget to comment. I literally thrive off them and feel so motivated when I hear you guys are actually enjoying my bullshit.
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress x


	23. The Shadow of Tyranny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove is brought before a "court" to defend herself against Claire's accusations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware ya'll who enter 'ere. There be a long-ass chapter before ye.
> 
> Tread with careful eye and wary mind, for snappy one-liners and a bounty of bull-shitery are afoot.

I waited until it had grown dark outside before calling Rick over to talk.

Daryl was already beside me, having stepped into the cage the moment Maggie unlocked it and making himself at home on the concrete bench to my right. He had yet to fully relax his shoulders but having Michonne offer to take his watch had at least lessened his stiffness somewhat.

Rick pulled open the cage door and leant against the metal frame, tilting his head as he regarded me curiously. “What happened?”

I grinned ruefully and blew out a breath through my teeth. “Some _shit_, man. You won’t believe it.”

Daryl spun his body around to face me fully, crossing his legs and leaning his forearms against his knees.

“Look, I know you both thought I’d lost my damn mind by agreeing to go with her, but it was the only way to deescalate that situation,” I explained, looking between the both of them earnestly. “She and Frank weren’t going to stop and being uncooperative was only going to make me look worse. Besides, we all knew there was something shady going on. I needed to know what.”

Rick straightened slightly. “And did you?”

I pursed my lips. “There was more I could’ve learned, but I needed to tell you what I already had.”

Daryl leant forwards as Rick waved his hand at me to continue.

“I think, and don’t quote me on this, but… Frank still supports Phil. And I don’t think he’s the only one.” My chest began to constrict at the thought as I watched Rick’s face fall somewhere between dismay and anger. “But,” I continued quickly, “I don’t think Claire is one of them. I just think she’s using his loyalty to the fucker to further her own game.”

“And what game is that?” Rick asked, his voice hard and grave.

I’d had time to think on that whilst sitting here. There’d been so many different possibilities to consider; a dozen conflicting motives and half as many passing thoughts of her moral character. Thankfully, deducing the reasonings and predicting the patterns of people had become a near essential part of my everyday life as an assassin. And even more-so as one of the fae.

A small, amused smile spread across my face as I snorted a soft chuckle. “The Game of Thrones,” I answered.

Both Daryl and Rick shared a confused look before glancing back at me with near matching raised-brow expressions.

“She’s playing for power,” I elaborated. “Control of the council. I’d suggest she’s using me to undermine all of you, to show your inability to think outside your biases. She’ll paint me as a villain and wait for you all to fall over yourselves trying to prove otherwise. In the meantime, she’ll use Frank and those like him to solidify a following of her own, until she has the majority and can use them to become the major power-player on the council.”

The two men in the cell with me looked objectively disturbed by my theory, looking between one another with pursed frowns.

“I think she has Frank and his ilk convinced she’s doing it all for Phil,” I continued, despite the fact I knew my words were likely making the two poor men sick to their stomachs. “Which is why they’re following him. The others are probably brought together by their mutual distrust of me – so, sorry about that. She either believes I’m the biggest threat to her play for power, or that I’m the greatest link between the Us and Them.”

“Her distaste for you likely has something to do with it,” Rick surmised with a grim frown.

I snorted. “I figured that was obvious.”

“It’s also probably her biggest weakness,” he continued as he pushed off the doorframe, stepping further into the cell alongside me and Daryl. His bright eyes bore into mine for a moment as I surveyed his expression, attempting to understand the reasoning behind his words.

It hit me suddenly and I straightened, blinking slightly in surprise. “You think her petty ploy for vengeance will outweigh her craving for power?”

He pursed his lips and lifted one shoulder in a non-committal shrug. “I’m simply saying your affinity for getting under her skin is rivalled by none.”

I lifted my hand and pointed at him. “Just, let me get this straight. Are you suggesting that I push her until she crumbles?”

He watched me silently, near statuesque before the cell door.

“Let me repeat. Are you suggesting… that I – _the_ Synnove le Jacques – _annoy_ Claire into submission?”

Rick, again, didn’t answer. He merely looked back at me, straight faced and stoic.

I glanced at Daryl, who met my gaze with a slightly amused one of his own.

“That’s what he’s saying, right?” I asked, a slow smile spreading across my face. “Please tell me that’s what he’s saying.”

Daryl nodded once, fighting against a grin of his own.

“Oh,” I breathed gleefully. “Oh, yes. Yes, I can do that. I can very, _very_ much do that.”

#

It was an admittedly boring next few days.

All I could do was sit and wait for the inevitable tolling of the bell – as it were. Claire was organising the council to convene for what she called a “fair trial”, inviting everyone within the prison to come sit as witnesses. Apparently, she, Frank, and their group of fanatics had rearranged the entire indoor recreational area to look as “court-like” as possible, going so far as to form an actual bar between the two sections of the room out of food-trollies. They’d set up a jury box from a series of uncomfortable looking chairs, set up in a diagonal position, facing the two tables that acted as both the plaintiff and defendant council seats. At the forefront of the room stood a raised podium, lifted by a rather unstable looking contraption made up of piles of books and a dismembered tabletop.

I was the last to enter the room, being escorting through the doors by both Frank and his new partner in crime, Ophelia – a fifty-year-old, broad shouldered ex-boxer with pretty red hair always braided tightly behind her head. They lead me down the pathway between the two aisles of seats, all taken up by members of the community. The divide was pretty clear. Those who believed I was innocent sat alongside Rick, Daryl, and the others, whilst those who were either unsure or convinced that I was guilty sat opposite.

“She really was a politician, wasn’t she?” I remarked under my breath to Ophelia as she led me down the aisle. We’d never exactly been close, Phee and I, but there’d been a sense of mutual respect between us that I was sad to see had been ripped away by Claire’s influence.

“Keep moving,” was all she said in response.

I snorted.

Everyone was watching me being dragged down toward the “bar”. I made sure to look at each of the faces on the aisle seats to my left – Claire’s side – grinning whilst I greeted them in turn as I passed.

“Morning, Carlos.”

“How you doin’, Marissa?”

“Lookin’ a little drawn there, Sebastian. Not sleeping well?”

“Oh, snazzy hat, Heather.”

“Good morning, Annalee.”

“I like your hair like that, Jerry, very lumberjack-chic, am I right?”

It was like warming up for the main event. Had to make sure my good natured wit was still with me, despite the unrelenting sense of frustration this entire situation sent rolling through me every moment it was drawn on further.

Once I’d reached the makeshift bar, Ophelia let go of my upper arm and rolled the “door” open – which was really just the only food trolly that remained on its wheels. They continued to escort me until I was pushed down into the chair behind the defendant table.

Claire sat across from me, behind the plaintiff table, glaring coldly at me across the small space between us. I met her narrowed eyes with a bright grin of my own.

“G’day, Clairy-Fairy.”

I could literally _see _her shoulders tensing at the nickname. Unfortunately, however, she kept her composure, rising out of her seat and turning to look toward the group sitting in the jury box. It was actually a relatively well put together jury – not that I’d ever give Claire that kind of credit aloud.

Glenn, Carol, and Beth were seated on three of the eight chairs. Sasha was there, too, alongside Lachlan – who was honestly a fifty-fifty when it came to his opinion of me at any given moment. He and I had fooled around during the early days and I don’t think he’s ever quite forgiven me for calling it off in favour of – and I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but… – spending time with Merle. Still, he had never been outright hostile toward me. I’d go far enough to say we were friendly. There was at least some semblance of respect lingering in that blonde head of his. I was sure of it.

What I wasn’t sure of was where Malcom sat on this whole thing. I knew he’d tried to protect Frank and Walter, but I also knew that had made him uncomfortable. The other two – Robert and Victor – I was certain were more… Claire-leaning. But that was fine in the grand scope of things, as the jury was actually pretty fair.

“Please, if you will, stand for the honourable Judge Craig Leslie,” Claire called out to the room.

I blinked once in surprise, turning to look up at Ophelia as I rose to my feet, who stood at the edge of my table, opposite Frank, who was playing bailiff beside Claire. “Craig was a _judge_?” I asked.

She nodded once without looking down at me.

The aforementioned Craig – sorry, _Judge Leslie_ – stepped out from the door leading to the kitchen. He walked across the open area and tentatively climbed up atop the raised podium to take his place at the head of the room.

I couldn’t help but cringe slightly as the wooden tabletop beneath his feet wobbled slightly as he stepped up atop it.

“Thank you. You may be seated.”

Craig Leslie was a very unassuming man, like many that had hailed from Woodbury. Simple in his appearance, with salt and pepper hair and a round face, he stood almost two inches shorter than me and was rather stout. He was far from a serious fellow, though, which was why I found it somewhat surprising that he’d been a judge back in the day.

“We’re here today to hold a fair trial,” Craig stated as he glanced between Claire and I. “To obtain the truth and administer the correct justice to those found guilty. Plaintiff, would you like to begin with your opening statement?”

I raised my hand before Claire could open her mouth.

Judge Leslie glanced toward me, sighed, and then gestured for me to speak.

“Are we doing this like an actual court hearing?” I asked, lifting a brow incredulously. “Formalities, technical terms, and all?”

Judge Leslie smiled slightly. “To the best of our ability.”

It was a joke, but I wasn’t about to say that aloud. I had to play along. At least for now.

The whole thing went basically as you’d expect. Claire doing her best to sound intellectually sound whilst baselessly blaming me for multiple horrible instances, only half of which were actually accurate. I waited until she’d said her piece before smirking up at Judge Leslie and finally, in an actual real-life scenario, was able to yell out the word “_Objection_!”

Claire snorted. “On what grounds?”

“Hearsay.”

She shook her head and chuckled low in her throat. “Unbelievable.”

“The beginning of your statement dictated a story that requires evidentiary validity, of which you have none but third-party gossip,” I stated in as hoity of a tone as I could manage without laughing. “Otherwise known as – what?”

“Hearsay,” Judge Leslie answered with a slight nod. “Sustained.”

“_What_?” Claire snapped.

“_Sustained_,” the judge repeated sternly.

“She literally admitted to killing Marcus!” Claire retorted.

“Hold yourself, Miss Duncan,” Craig warned.

Claire let out an indignant huff before walking back to her chair and sinking down into it, crossing her arms over her chest. With her now silent, the judge turned to me and gestured for me to stand.

“Would you like to make your opening statements?”

I grinned, glancing over my shoulder at Rick and Daryl before turning to nod at the judge. Standing from my place behind the defendant table, I stepped into the open area between the podium and tables and turned dramatically toward the audience.

“G’day one, G’day all. Friends, family, foes. All gathered here to bear witness to the supererogatory and gratuitous plethora of bullshitery our dear Clairy-Fairy has thrust upon us today.”

Murmurs began to roll through either side of the gathered audience, quiet and numerous enough to be nothing more to my enhanced ears than a single, low hum of sound. I didn’t need to look at Claire to know she was likely peering up at Craig, aghast, expecting him to tell me off for my language.

I didn’t give him a chance, continuing with a wide grin on my face, barely even giving myself time to breathe.

“I understand that we as a community have better things to do today than participate in what I would personally refer to as an unseemly witch hunt, however, as some of you have expressed some – shall we say, concern? – regarding my less-than-savoury skill set, I will comply with your wishes for what is basically a public interrogation.

Now, firstly, allow me to address the primary issue here. The murder of Walter was a tragedy, right? And a vast number of you seem to have been convinced that _I_ was the one behind it. An incorrect assumption, but – alright, I’ll admit – a fair enough one. You all know the truth behind what happened with Marcus. You all know the reasons I gave for that. Whether you believe them or not, the fact of the matter remains that I came forward about Marcus immediately. Did I kill him? Yes. Did I kill Charlotte, Alfie, Patrick, Robbie, and Bea when they came crashing into this very prison, spraying bullets every which way? Yes. I did.”

I could hear the uneasy whispers begin to spread through the gathering, even over the sound of my own voice. What had happened to those five had barely been spoken about during these past few weeks. Everyone knew they’d died here, casualties of the Governor’s war. I’d been upfront and apologetic about what had transpired. Of course, not everyone had forgiven me for it, but no one had brought it up again since moving to the prison full-time.

“You know what all these things have in common? A motive. Self-defence. A _confession_. Did I confess to Walter’s murder? No. Because I know I’m innocent of it. And I have a rather convincing case as to who may well be guilty.” 

There was a brief pause as I glanced across to Claire, who looked as if she were about to raise her voice.

“Which will be mostly circumstance and my opinion, of course,” I quickly added. “Far be it for me to make accusations on minimal evidence, huh, guys? I mean, I may be a bitch, but I’m a responsible, community-minded bitch, unlike some, right, Clairy-Fairy?”

Claire shut her mouth so violently I actually heard her teeth click together from the centre of the room. Slowly, as if it took her some actual effort, she lifted her hand and looked to the judge. “May I request Miss le Jacques refer to me by an appropriate title?”

I glanced toward Craig, cocking a questioning brow.

“Please use Miss Duncan’s proper title,” he stated.

My grin widened as I nodded, turning back to look at Claire. “My apologies, _Miss_ Clairy-Fairy.”

Claire snorted indignantly as she looked back to Craig.

“She requested I use her title, and I did. May we move on?” I asked without turning around.

“_No_,” Claire spat. “_We may not_.”

“I don’t think that’s your decision there, _Miss_ Clairy-Fairy,” I remarked in response, grinning over my shoulder at Judge Leslie.

She slowly rose from her seat, eyeing me disdainfully. “I will not continue until you address me by my proper name and stop being childish.”

I snorted a laugh. “Well, that’s not going to happen, so I guess you won’t be continuing.” Turning to Judge Leslie, I gave a polite smile. “I motion for an acquittal on the bases of the plaintiff’s unwillingness to continue the trial.”

The absolute smallest of smiles began to tug at the corner of Craig’s thin lips as he opened his mouth, lifting a hand as if he were actually about to do what I’d asked. He didn’t get the chance, of course, as Claire leapt around from behind the table and yelled out for him to stop.

“_Fine_,” she breathed. “Fine. I will continue. May I call my first witness?”

The judge motioned for me to sit back down as he gave Claire the go-ahead to summon her first “witness” who was, to no one’s shock, Frank. She began her questioning by first asking Frank to state his name and his previous profession before the “end of civilisation”. Next came the obvious inquiry into our time together within the Governor’s inner circle, during which I could notice the cautious way she phrased her questions, being sure not to give Frank a way to shoot himself in the foot by admitting he still favoured the motherfucker.

And then, of course, came the inevitable. She began to question him on that night.

“Were you and Walter in the hallway together when you happened upon Miss le Jacques?”

Frank nodded an affirmative. “We were.”

“Where you were subsequentially attacked by the defendant?”

“Yes,” Frank answered.

I looked to the sky and forced myself not to snort in amusement. This whole trial bullshit was illogical and stupid. It made absolutely no sense. What laws were we following, what authority? None of it goddamn mattered. It was all just a show.

“It was during this attack that the defendant murdered your comrade, Walter, wasn’t it?” Claire asked.

I felt my back straighten as I lifted my hand. “Objection.”

“On what grounds?” Claire asked haughtily, turning partially to face me with a sneer. “That it makes you look bad?”

“Leading the witness,” I answered smugly, looking up at the judge.

Craig’s brows rose slightly as a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He nodded once, seemingly surprised, and said, “Sustained.”

Claire’s sneer vanished in the blink of an eye. “Allow me to rephrase, then, your Honour.” She turned back to Frank, her movements slightly jerky, as if her irritation had literally stiffened her limbs. “Do you believe Walter was injured as a direct result of the alleged assault by the defendant?”

Frank nodded once again. “Yes.”

“Objection,” I called out.

Claire snorted. “What now?”

“Lay witness opinion,” I remarked. “He is not a medical professional and has no right to offer his opinion on cause of death.”

The judge took his sweet time considering that, pursing his lips in thought as he looked between Claire’s indignant frown and my somewhat smug smirk. Finally, after a moment, he nodded. “Sustained.”

Claire actually scoffed. “Ridiculous.”

“It’s a fair objection,” the judge stated simply. “I’d suggest rephrasing again or move on to another question.”

She shook her head and turned back to Frank with a sigh. “After the alleged assault, did you stay with Walter until the moment of his death?”

Frank nodded. “I did.”

“Were there any other incidents following the alleged assault by the defendant that may have led to Walter’s death?”

“Objecti–“

“I’ll rephrase,” Claire snapped.

“Were you present for the entire time from the beginning of the alleged assault to Walter’s last breath?”

“Yes.”

“And, during that time, did you witness any other people in the hallway?”

“Yes,” Frank answered.

It was a minuscule movement, but I saw Claire slightly tense and felt myself beginning to smile. That answer hadn’t been part of the plan. It took her barely a second to recover herself, leaning back slightly and looking out into the audience gathered with a thoughtful frown.

“Multiple or singular?” she asked.

“Just one.”

“Are they in this room?”

“Yes.”

“Can you point them out?”

Frank raised his hand, lifting a finger to point in my direction. It took me a second to realise he wasn’t actually pointing at me, but behind me. I spun in my chair and locked eyes with Daryl, feeling my heart sink in my chest. The last thing I had wanted was for him to get dragged into this bullshit.

Turning back to face the court, I felt the cold unease that had settled in my stomach turn rapidly to anger at the smug look of surprised satisfaction of Claire’s face as she realised whom Frank had pointed out amongst the gathered audience.

“Are you pointing at Mr Dixon?” Claire asked, though her gaze was latched onto mine.

“I am,” Frank responded.

“Thank you, Frank.” Claire grinned. “Now, did Mr Dixon arrive before or after Walter’s death?”

“Before,” Frank responded.

“Was he a participant in the alleged altercation?”

“He was not.”

“But he can attest to the validity of the accusation of assault by the defendant?” Claire asked.

“He can,” Frank answered with a slight grin.

My shoulders were beginning to curve in on themselves with the amount of effort it was taking to keep my goddamn mouth shut. I could feel my hands squeezing into fists and forced myself to take a deep breath, relaxing my muscles as much as I could beneath the heat of my frustration.

“So – and correct me if I’m wrong – the defendant assaulted you in the hallway, was interrupted by and subsequentially removed by Mr Dixon, after which you remained by Walter’s side until he passed?”

“Sounds ‘bout right to me,” Frank responded.

I threw my hand into the air and yelled, “Objection!”

“On what grounds, Miss le Jacques?” Judge Leslie asked.

“On the grounds of bullshit!” I snapped in response. “He ran like a little bitch!”

A low murmur of voices rippled through the room as the judge looked disapprovingly down at me and Claire whirled around to give me a near triumphant smirk.

“Overruled, Miss le Jacques. Consider this a warning for your language.”

I let out a long breath through my nose and waved a dismissive hand, leaning forward on the table and watching Claire as she turned back to face Frank. Despite the fact I could no longer see her face, I knew she was grinning.

“No further questions, your Honour.”

It took me a good few moments after that to gather myself, to force that feeling of undiluted anger back down until logical thought could return to my brain. Judge Leslie asked if I had any questions for Frank, which I replied to in the affirmative before sliding out from behind my table, taking that brief moment to glance toward Rick and the others.

Rick gave me a nod, brow raised, as if he were trying to remind me to keep on track.

It occurred to me in that moment that Claire and I were playing the same game here. This whole courtroom bullshit was just a setting, a field she had laid down to play upon and give herself the home advantage. I hadn’t known much of her background before the whole “senator” thing she constantly bragged about, but it was obvious to me now that she’d had a history in law. I was just fortunate enough to have caught her slightly off guard with my own knowledge of court proceedings.

After all, it was important to know the loopholes in laws you constantly broke, right?

Managing to pull myself together, I turned toward the man sitting beside the podium and flashed him a wide smile. “Franklin.”

He swallowed and blinked a few times before nodding. “Jacques.”

“I won’t keep you long,” I said softly. “After all, I know you need some time to lick those wounds of yours, right?”

“Objection!” Claire yelled. “Argumentative.”

I patiently waited until Judge Leslie said. “Overruled” before I continued.

“On the subject of those wounds of yours, do you mind showing the ones on your arms to the jury?”

Franklin glanced at Claire before he nodded, which made my blood boil, but I let it slide. He stood, pulling up his sleeves and unwinding the bandage on either arm until his healing wounds were visible to everyone.

I heard a gasp within the jury and gestured for Frank to re-bandage himself.

Once he had, I began to pace back and forth before him, glancing every so often toward the man out the corner of my eye as I spoke. My questions were simple at first, a kind of warm up to get Frank into the flow of answering everything I threw his way. Claire remained silent for the majority of it, which surprised me, but I was thankful nonetheless.

My questionings didn’t amount to a head until almost five minutes after I’d started, as I’d made sure to make them as long-winded and hard to follow as possible. The idea was to make him think on each and every question, until he was handed a simple, easy one, that he answered almost upon instinct.

“After the alleged assault, when the defendant – that’s me – left alongside Mr Little Dixon over there, content to spend the rest of the night eyeing the horizon for any sign of trouble – as we often do – did you or did you not remain beside Walter until the moment of his death?”

“I’ve already answered –“

“Again, my friend. Say it again.”

“Objection. Leading the witness,” Claire sighed.

“Sustained,” Judge Leslie agreed.

“Alrighty, then. How about this one? How much do you know about velociraptors?”

Frank blinked once in surprise and then again in confusion. “Uh… Not much?”

“Objection,” Claire sneered. “Irrelevant.”

“I have a point,” I said, looking up to the judge.

He nodded. “Overruled. Get to it quickly.”

“So, for those of us that are unaware, velociraptors were theorised to be pack hunters. Not as intelligent as – you know – _Jurassic Park_ made them seem, but they were thought to be somewhere between dogs and dolphins on the brain-scale. They’d hunt together and they’d do it smart, wouldn’t they? The alpha – the big boss of the group, right? The one that had the brains and called the shots? It’s possible that he – or she – would corral the prey into a corner, where the omega – the weakest link of the group, the token “moron” of the pack, if you will – would lie in wait to ambush them – because that’s obviously all that he – or she – could be trusted to do due to their moronic nature, right?

So, shifting that particular allegory – that of the theorised and embellished hunting behaviours of velociraptors – into the right context, it would be accurate of me to suggest that you were the omega to Walter’s alpha, right?”

Frank snorted. “Like hell.”

“Then why the hell were you the little bitch lying in wait to ambush me?”

“Because it was my damn idea.”

A wide, near mad grin spread across my face as I slowly straightened and turned to look at Claire, the room erupting once again into hushed whispers.

“Was it now?” I spun back to face Frank, still smiling wide. “_Your_ idea, huh?”

Again, his gaze slid to Claire, wide in their panic. He knew he’d made a mistake and now he was about to start scrambling to fix it. “I mean, I was the ideas guy. Walter followed me around, you know? I was the alpha. That’s what I meant.”

“Yeah?” I mused. “Well, damn. If you’re the alpha, the fuck does that make her? The beta?”

“I beg your pardon?” Claire snapped, rising out of her seat.

I stepped to the side, allowing myself a view of Claire but keeping Frank in my peripherals. “I’m just tying to get the entire scope of the situation, you know? If Frank is the alpha and Walter was the poor omega, does that make you the beta? The alpha’s bitch, the _second in command_, the follower, the Sam to his Frodo, the Tex to his Charles Manson – how the fuck did I make the leap from Lord of the Rings to Charles fucking Manson? I don’t know, but I did. And I think it’s solidified my point here.”

“Objection, your Honour!” Claire yelled, stepping out from behind her table, her face contorted into a mixture of panic and anger. “This is irrelevant from the case!”

I snorted a laugh. “Not if your involvement solidifies his motive to initiate an altercation between the three of us.”

“Objecti –“

“Oh, you can yell “objection” to your hearts fucking content, Clairy-Fairy, but the fact of the matter is that _this_ –“ I gestured to the room around me “– this is _not_ a court room! I am not on a criminal trial here because there is no judicial jurisdiction in the _fucking apocalypse_, sweetheart! This is a farce. It’s a testament to your goddamn ego that just happened to conveniently coincide with your distain for me. You set the board for this game, expecting me to move like a pawn, when I’m the fucking _Queen_.”

I took great amusement in the way her face suddenly went pale, going almost slack in expression as she watched me beginning to approach her slowly, my cold gaze all but pinning her to the spot.

“You know what you are?” I asked her, tilting my head to the side. “You’re the kid that knocks all the pieces off the board because the game isn’t going their way.”

Claire’s upper lip curled over her teeth. “You undignified, little –“

“Careful, Clairy,” I mused. “Wouldn’t want to say something incriminating now, would we?”

Claire’s brow rose as she curled her upper lip up in a look of disgust. “I have nothing to hide.”

I lifted a hand, tapping my chin with my forefinger as I regarded her incredulously. “_Really_? I don’t know, man. A lot of people dropping dead at your behest.”

She snorted. “You throw accusations that have no basis in reality, Jacques. If we stick to the facts, who here appears the guilty party?”

“And what facts would those be?” I asked with a cocked brow. “Because the way I see things, you’re painting a picture with the wrong kind of canvas, sweetheart. I’m not above murder – we all know that. But I am above murder without reason and the _fact _of the matter is; I had no reason to kill Walter. You _have_ reason to make people believe I did. Your motive outweighs mine.”

Claire let out a strangled laugh as Frank moved restlessly in his seat upon the stands. The audience, all having grown somewhat unsettled now that I had shattered this ridiculous illusion of a “fair and just” trial, began to murmur amongst themselves.

“A motive that exists in your mind and nowhere else.” Claire shook her head, turning partially to look at the gathered members of our community. “You all know her. You all know me. Which one of us has hands the colour of crimson?”

I snorted. “How poetically put.”

“She is a murderer! She has always _been _a murderer! You all know it as well as I do!”

“If I were as much of a loose, murderous cannon as you seem to believe I am, then explain this to me,” I began, stepping towards Claire with narrowed eyes. “Why in the name of fuck would I kill _Walter_ but let _you_ live?”

That question seemed to catch her off guard. She blinked once, took half a step back and regarded me with narrowed, burning eyes. Her mouth opened and closed for a moment, as if she were struggling to formulate a response. I decided not to give her the chance.

“You manipulated both Frank and Walter into believing that you supported their absurd continued loyalties to the Governor – despite the fact that the sheer mention of the man kind of makes you want to puke – purely so you could solidify their support to your claim of absolute power over the council. A claim that I would most certainly be the biggest obstacle of. You needed a way to move me aside, to cast me into doubt, so, when I started poking around in what happened at the farm, you used it to your advantage. You told Frank and Walter to subdue me, knowing full well I’d fight back and win, hoping that I took things too far just like I did with Marcus. But, when I didn’t, you had to figure out a way to make it look like I did. So, you told Frank to take care of Walter – but he fought back, too, didn’t he?”

I turned to look at Frank with a cocked brow. The man was pale, beads of sweat clinging to his brow as he looked between Claire and I with wide eyes.

“Those wounds on your arms are defensive. He knew you were trying to kill him, so he pulled a knife and swung it at you. You lifted your arms to protect your face and he cut into them. Am I wrong?”

Frank opened his mouth, but snapped it shut once again when his eyes slid across to Claire.

“Don’t look at her, Frank,” I hissed. “She manipulated you. Claire doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Governor and you know as well as I do that, even if she did, there’s not a chance in hell she’d share her place as “head of the council” with anyone. You killed your friend for no reason. You murdered Caleb and Terry for _nothing_. Admit it, Frankie.”

“I – I didn’t –“

I whirled on him fully, slapping my hands on the armrests of his chair and leaning over to look him hard in the eye. “Yes, you did! You can try and pin it all on me, Frankie, but we’ll both always know what you did. It’ll never leave you – the guilt and the shame and the memory. It will _never _go away.”

He was almost close to tears at this point. I could see his eyes growing glassy, his hands shaking as they clenched into fists in his lap, lips pulled into a taut line as he tried to stop himself from speaking.

“You can’t bully him into admitting something he didn’t do!” Claire yelled, stepping toward me and reaching out, as if to pull me away.

I turned my head to look at her, and the ice in my gaze all but froze her in place. Slowly, I returned my gaze to Frank, softer now, almost pleading. “Frank. Terry was a kid, man. Tell me why. Give me something. Give all of us _something_.”

“It wasn’t meant to go that way,” Frank whispered.

I heard a gasp from the jury, who were likely the only ones closest enough to hear Frank’s miserable admission. With a sigh and a shake of my head, I stepped away from his chair, looking down at him with a sad frown. “How was it meant to go, Frank?”

“Do not answer that,” Claire snapped, stepping closer to the both of us in order to point a finger at him in warning.

I didn’t turn to look at her, focusing my attention of the spiderwebbing cracks forming in Frank’s demeanour. “What was the plan?”

Frank shook his head.

“What possible reason did you have to kill Caleb? Did he know something? Something she didn’t want getting out?” I asked, pointing toward Claire.

Frank’s entire body was shaking at this point as he looked down to the ground, clenching his jaw, squeezing his eyes shut as she shook his head over and over again. He knew he’d fucked up, put himself into a damning position. And he knew the only way out of it was to throw Claire to the wolves before they had a chance to devour him. But he was still holding on to the idea that she was on his side. That they were all in this together.

Poor bastard.

“Fine, let me set the scene for you, and you can tell me what I got wrong afterwards, alright?” I asked, turning back to face the crowd. “Caleb knew something that Claire didn’t want to get out, so she used her position on the council to orchestrate the perfect means of getting rid of him.”

Claire took another threatening step toward me. “That is hearsay!”

“Frank and Walter were both still loyal to the Governor. They wanted things to go back to the way they were in Woodbury but didn’t have the tactical know-how to make it happen. Claire used that to her advantage. She sent Caleb to a biter-infested farm alongside the two men she’d manipulated into leashes.”

“I will not listen to this any longer!” Claire snapped, reaching out to grab my arm.

I easily spun out of her grip, almost dancing around her as I smiled and continued, tapping my chin in an over dramatic motion of thoughtfulness. “Malcom saw everything but kept to himself, which begs the question; was he brought off or in on it the entire time?”

The man in question, sitting on the jury with his back near ram-rod straight, went pale as my gaze locked onto his. A dozen thoughts rolled through me at once; possibility after possibility. Was he part of Claire’s little army? Doubtful. Had he kept it to himself to protect his own life? No, I didn’t believe that, either. He wasn’t exactly a brave man, but he was a proud one. It was something else. Something more.

Slowly, I turned around and glanced toward Daryl. He was watching the entire situation unfold with tense shoulders, his hands gripping the edges of the seat beneath him as if he were struggling to remain in place. When he met my gaze, he lifted a thin brow in question.

His voice played over in my mind, our conversation from a few days ago.

_Couple o’ seeds, bags o’ yeast, some tools, bits o’ copper wire and timber. Ain’t much, but at least it’s somethin’_.

… _bags o’ yeast… bits o’ copper wire…_

I clicked my fingers, spinning in place and pointing to Malcom with a grin. “The wire! They brought you off with the wire and the yeast, didn’t they?”

His already straightened back seemed to tense slightly, shoulders pulling back as his gaze slid across to where Frank still sat on the pitiful excuse for a witness stand. Even from where I stood here, even over the whispers rippling through the gathered audience to my right, I could hear the quickening of Malcom’s heartbeat.

I was right.

The copper wire, the yeast… For moonshine. Claire had used these remnants of Malcom’s brother to buy his silence. It was as sad as it was sickening.

“They bribed you with pieces of your brother’s favourite past time,” I sighed with a shake of my head. “Jesus Christ.”

Claire’s entire face had turned a near concerning shade of red as she looked between Malcom and I with wide, angered eyes. Her brows were furrowed, mouth set in a hard line, fists clenched at her sides.

“You murdered a man to keep a secret, getting a kid killed in process, and then orchestrated another man’s murder to keep me from digging into the first one. To throw me under the prison bus in the hopes that I’d drag Rick and Daryl down with me.” I shook my head, laughing without humour. This was the moment, the chance I needed. Almost everything had connected itself, and now that I had laid it out in front of her, she was on edge enough to unbalance. It was the time to push.

I stepped closer to her, cocking my head to the side as I gave her a feral grin. “All this, and for what? To satisfy your ego? Were you really that depraved as a child? Did you not get enough love or attention to quell your feverish lust for acknowledgement? I mean, I get it. Some of us have had rough childhoods. It happens. Doesn’t give you an excuse to be such a vengeful, arrogant, pitiful, disgusting, undignified, untactful, inelegant, manipulative, and gluttonous piece of shit.”

“You –“

“_I am not finished_,” I growled, taking another step towards her.

She scrambled back, lifting her hands up slightly as if she believed they would act as some kind of shield between us. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ophelia take a step forward, a few people rising to their feet behind her, likely anticipating me to initiate a physical altercation. Judge Leslie, who had spent the majority of our verbal debate sitting, leaning forward against his makeshift podium with a thoughtful frown, straightened as I grew closer to Claire.

“How do you justify the three lives that have been lost in your goddamn quest for control? Do you honestly think you’re doing this for some greater good? “To protect the people”? From what, Claire? What are you protecting them from? Because, at this point, if you truly believe that it’s to keep them safe from me – because I’m a murderer – you’re deluding yourself. Because all you’ve fucking done is _become_ me.”

Claire let out a growl that I believe was supposed to be a word of disagreement but was too guttural and full of anger to really translate into any known English word.

“You’ve fought to rid yourself of me because I unnerve you,” I continued. “Because you think I’m some kind of villain. But, I’m not. And somewhere in that muddled mind of yours, I think you know that now, but just can’t admit it. You’ve been with me since the beginning, you’ve seen the things I’ve done to keep you all safe. That’s all I’ve wanted to do. But for some goddamn, fucking reason, people like you – like Marcus – you… just… won’t _let me_.”

At this, Claire finally snapped. She clenched her fists by her sides so tightly, I could hear her joints creak and crack. Her eyes narrowed, grey eyes cold and burning all at once. “You do not get to say his name! Not anymore, not after what you did to him!”

It was her turn to step toward me now. For such a wiry woman, she managed that cool, tempered and predatory approach quite well. Were it anyone but Claire, I almost would have admired it.

My own body kept its lithe movements as I allowed myself to take a single step back to match each of her forward movements, not backing away from her, per se, but goading her into feeling that she had taken control. I watched her with keen eyes, taking in the tight shoulders and the curled lip as she all but spat her piece.

“You – you think none of us could see it? The way you wrapped all of those men around your finger and put yourself in a position of power over the rest of us? You had an unnatural hold over Phillip! We could see it! You… you’re a fucking witch! Marcus was only doing what needed to be done! We all agreed!”

I kept my expression as schooled as possible but was unable to stop my brow from lifting. It wasn’t as if the people of Woodbury hadn’t called me a witch before – Merle used to do it all the time, albeit jokingly. Even Martinez had once yelled “_bruja_” at me when I’d beaten him in a game of poker. And let’s be honest – it was common knowledge that, back during the earlier days, some of the people within the walls had considered me somewhat of a threat. They’d convinced themselves that I was nothing but trouble, that I was a criminal who was only helping them because I wanted to make myself their leader and rule through fear.

Or curse them and eat their souls, I don’t know.

The point is, that wasn’t what made me twitch when Claire yelled out that sentence. It was the way she said his name. Softly, almost tenderly, as if in idolisation. It had been the only word in that whole thing that hadn’t been screeched at the top of her lungs.

How had I never noticed that before? The way her voice almost caressed his name like a lost lover.

I felt it click into place with a near physical snap.

“You loved him,” I whispered, my feet suddenly coming to a halt. “You were _with_ him when I killed him, weren’t you?”

Those words sent a shock wave of ice through her so violently, her entire body froze in place. She looked up at me, her eyes moistened by unshed tears yet still burning with an indignant rage, as she reached behind her back. “They all looked at you like that. Even him. Even after all the things we saw you do; all the things we’d all say you were. You controlled everyone around you without even _trying_! Even the ones that hated you! I just wanted you gone!”

“You told him to come after me that night,” I choked out in surprise, blinking rapidly as my mind began to pick up all the scattered pieces that had fallen before me. I could tell by the way her eye twitched slightly that I was right. “That’s what Caleb knew, wasn’t it? The secret you wanted Frank and Walter to ensure he kept.”

“Yes,” Claire hissed. “He was supposed to kill you, not –“

I stepped forwards, my shoulders tensing with the effort it took not to reach out and throw her across the damn room. “You believed me,” I growled, cutting her off. “I told you all what he tried to do, and you pretended like it was an impossibility, like you thought I was lying. But you fucking believed me from the start, didn’t you? And it wasn’t Marcus that you blamed, it was _me_.”

The entire room had fallen entirely silent, coating the air with such a thick tension that it was practically physically there. No one moved. Barely a breath could be heard as I stared down at Claire, my body shaking beneath the pressure of my restrained fury.

Claire faired no better. She was almost as angry as I was in that moment, staring up at me with what was an admittedly daring amount of loathing. The only difference between us was that, if I lost my control, there was a possibility that I would accidentally burn her to ashes where she stood. Which would… be a little difficult to explain to the literal three dozen people currently bearing witness to our stand-off.

“You did all this because I took some dick from you?” I hissed out a scoff. “I’d say you’re better than that, Claire, but… You’re a despicable excuse for a human being,” I stated coldly, staring down at her with an icy glare. “And, coming from me? That’s saying something.”

It would have been easy to see from the perspective of the audience. Hell, I probably should have spotted it sooner than I did. But no one really had the time to react, not in any way that would have mattered had I not been supernaturally gifted with speedy reflexes.

At some point during my hissed insult, Claire had begun to reach behind her. The moment I had stopped speaking, she had looked up at me with a hatred that burned brighter than the damn sun, and said, “This world is rotten enough without you in it. I do what I do for my people.”

I blinked once, slightly taken off guard by the whispered words. The next thing I knew, Claire was bringing the pointed tip of a small pocketknife down towards my chest.

My hand snapped upwards so fast, the movement was barely more than a blur, snatching her forearm in a steely grip. The tip of the blade had penetrated the cotton of my shirt and almost half an inch of flesh, but I brought it to a stop before it could do any real damage. Fire burnt in my blood, dulling my thoughts to little more than a pure, undiluted anger.

In a fluid motion, I disarmed her, twisting the blade into my own hand and bringing it up in a vicious strike towards her throat.

“Syn!”

I froze at the sound of his voice, the tip of Claire’s pocketknife barely the width of a hair away from her throat. Almost every muscle in my body tensed with the effort it took to stop myself from just letting that blade slide into the bitch’s throat. We were so close at this point that I could see the dark flecks of blue in her grey eyes as they stared, terrified, up at me.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I debated ignoring the warning in Rick’s voice. It was an internal struggle that lasted mere seconds but felt as if it stretched for hours. Killing Claire might end one problem, that was true. And it sure as shit would _feel good_. But it would also start a plethora of others.

I would become the murderer she had tried to convince everyone I was in the eyes of the people here. It would open the question of capital punishment in the apocalypse; a question I did not want to be the one to answer. And, worst of all, it would only serve to prove her damn point. Killing her would prove that I was dangerous. Disobeying Rick would prove I was selfish and disloyal.

Swallowing back against the near overwhelming urge to move that knife just a few inches further, I took lowered the knife, leaning down to whisper into Claire’s ear.

“_Who’s the murderer now_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'DAY!   
I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Honestly, it was one of the most fun to write.   
And I'm sorry for it being so long, I tried to cut it down but I... just... couldn't! 
> 
> Anyway, please let me know what you thought! As always, I love a good comment and promise to reply to each and every one! :D
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	24. A Thunderous Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months after the trial, things at the prison begin to settle, until an unexpected explosion rocks the grounds.

The next three months passed in a seemingly serene blur.

Everything had settled down, people now had jobs and routine. The cleaning crew, the farmers, the cooks, the guards, the runners. Only one job was cycled through for everyone and that was the Fence crew. We’d managed to repair the wire fence as best we could with the materials we had on hand, assigning a total of ten people to stand by at all times, clearing away any biters that make a nuisance of themselves. It was far from a pleasant experience, which was why we’d basically begun using it as a form of punishment.

Our longest serving fencer, who had been manning the fence for almost two and a half months now, was Claire. After her outburst in that farce of a courtroom trial, the council had initially decided to keep her under “house-arrest” until we figured out a better alternative. She was on watch twenty-four-seven, unable to leave the cell block, and was obviously removed from her council responsibilities. When we established the fence-watch, Daryl, Rick, Maggie, Glenn and I had taken the first shift, during which I’d somewhat jokingly remarked that I’d love to watch Claire suffer through some actual physical labour. Rick had thought it a great idea and, after checking with the council, we put it into motion a week later.

Frank was also utilised, having been found guilty of Walter, Caleb, and Terry’s murders a few days after I’d been acquitted. He and Claire were kept as far apart as the fence allowed, of course, and were kept under the watchful eyes of both Ophelia and Tyreese.

A few weeks after the whole courtroom fiasco, Carol and I were officially given the go-ahead to start our little “book club”. It went almost perfectly during the first week. We established a chaperone crew – which all consisted of mothers, fathers and guardians that were in on the truth – so the other parents were more comfortable and explained to the kids that every second session would have an important segment for self-defence. All the kids were on board, even promising to keep it a secret.

And, yes. It did feel _super_ cult-y.

But, at the end of the day, it was kind of worth the discomfort. The vote for my idea of Child In-Dangerment had, indeed, been viciously one-sided. Only Daryl, Michonne, and I voted for. Tyreese, Karen, Hayden, Hershel, and the new member, Lachlan, voted against.

So, secretive little cult meetings about stabbing shit it was.

Despite that, however, I got just as into the whole book club part of it as I did the knifework. It got so invested that I began doing a dramatic retelling of the entire Game of Thrones series off memory alone. Once a week, I would go on for about two hours, recounting the story with such passion and fever that it actually became quite popular throughout the prison populace. People began to show up to those sessions along with their kids, and soon, even the people without kids began squeezing into the packed room to listen.

We’d had to move it outside lately, as the prison library had grown too small for my audience.

For once, people actually enjoyed the fact that I could remember entire monologues and sequences of events from the show and the book. I could even run off some Dothraki and Old Valerian. And because I said it all with such fever, such dramatics, most of the parents even overlooked my _horrendous _language and overly detailed play-by-plays of graphic death scenes.

Funnily enough, I even managed to work in some lessons into my storytelling. After all, it wasn’t _nearly_ as intense if the kids couldn’t visualise how one might utilise a sword of spear in close quarters combat, was it? And it certainly wasn’t as impressive if the kids couldn’t imagine how one might throw a knife, right?

It was all about the _immersion_, you know?

Of course, there were some that had issue with it. Namely, Hayden – who we all knew only had a problem with it because _I_ was the one telling the story. Despite his unfiltered distaste for his ex-wife, he seemed to blame me singularly for what had become of her lately. Not that I gave much of a shit, really, but it continued to make council sessions needlessly tedious.

Take, for example, our most recent foray into “friendly” debate.

We had disagreed over the purposed clearing of cell block E. Over the last few weeks, we’d accumulated a handful of new tenants from a few of our runs outside the prison. We were rapidly running out of room and I had suggested cleaning out the biter infested cells next to D-Block. Most agreed, though Hayden and Karen had both thought the project too risky. An understandable concern, which I had attempted to quell by explaining the possible processes we could use, to no avail.

Hayden wouldn’t have any of it. He went on and on about my irresponsibility and lack of insight, accusing me of just using the project as an excuse to purge myself of my violent tendencies before they got out of hand.

Honestly, after all the bullshit I’d gone through with Claire, I was almost content to just ignore him, but when he brought up the suggestion that I had only been so high-up in leadership back at Woodbury because I’d been “in-bed” with the Governor, I about snapped.

The laugh that escaped me at that moment was almost more of an incredulous cackle. “Oh, please. Please tell me that you don’t actually believe that.”

Hayden’s dark, bushy brow rose. “He treated you like a damn pet. Doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to know why.”

I snorted. “Oh, honey. That man could have had a dick made of solid fucking gold, and I wouldn’t have looked twice. Get your head out of your ass, Hayden, and back into what we’re actually talking about.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, practically pouting like petulant child. “I don’t take orders from you anymore.”

“My God,” I sighed, turning to give Daryl a look somewhere between “what the fuck” and “help me”.

“Just shut up, man,” Daryl remarked, leaning forward, resting his forearms against the cold metal tabletop. “We got shit to talk ‘bout.”

“Of course, _you’d _jump to her defence,” Hayden scoffed. “What is it with the men in your family falling at her damn feet?”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Michonne broke in, lifting her hands in a surrendering gesture.

“No. It’s not enough. I stand by my original opinion that she does not belong on this council,” Hayden continued brazenly. “She has a history of questionable judgement, at _best_.”

Another bemused snort escaped me. “Oh, we’ve all met your ex-wife, Hayden. I think we can agree questionable judgement is not solely a “me” issue.”

Hayden rose out of his seat, pointing at me accusingly. “You foreign bitch!”

“Sit the hell down!” Daryl yelled as he, too, rose out of his seat to face-off with the other man.

“Why don’t you sit the hell down, lover boy?” Hayden snapped.

“Why don’t you _both _sit the hell down?!” I yelled, looking up at both of them with a cocked brow. “Jesus Christ. I thought we were over this.”

“I won’t be “over this” until your serving time on the fence where you goddamn belong.”

“You know what, Hayden? Suck an entire dick and choke on it.”

Hayden let out a scoff before slowly lowering himself back down into his seat, muttering something under his breath I’m pretty sure he believed no one would hear. Except, of course, I did.

“_Like you choke on his._”

Before I had the chance to respond to that – because, rest assured, I was not letting that comment pass by freely – a sudden, near deafening explosion shook the entire cell block. Daryl, who had been the only one standing, was almost knocked off balance. I shot up and caught his arm, steadying him. Small bits of dust and debris from the ceiling above coating his dark hair in a matter of seconds.

Without any further hesitation, I stepped out from the table and sprinted across the room, sliding through the side door of the cell block and down the thin corridor toward the courtyard. When I exited, I was greeted by the distinct smell of alcohol and smoke. Kids were screaming nearby, huddled together by the wall to my left, as far away from the building opposite them as possible. The concrete yard itself was littered with shattered shards of broken brick and mortar.

Smoke billowed out from the large hole in the wall of the cell block across the courtyard from me.

Daryl appeared beside me, gripping onto my shoulder in order to stop himself from running into me. He let out a curse when he saw the still smouldering remains of D-Block’s wall.

I stepped out of the doorway. Along the left wall, the kids huddled together, parents rushing over from the other side of the fence in a panic. My eyes scanned each and every one of them, thankfully finding no trace of physical injury other than a small cut here or there.

The twins were standing together, barely a few paces away from the door. My heart clenched in my chest when I saw the brick dust coating their usually bright hair, the small line of red across Ava’s cheek. I jogged over to them, reaching out to take each of their shoulders gently as I asked, “Are you okay?”

Ava and Tayra both nodded.

I brushed their hair from their faces before softly taking Ava’s chin in my hand and turning her head to the side to inspect her wound. It was a tiny cut, no longer than my fingernail. A sigh of relief escaped me.

Silvia arrived by my side a moment later and told me she would take them to go see Hershel or Maggie just to make sure they were unharmed. I nodded, watching as they followed along behind her until my gaze was drawn back to the smouldering hole in the wall across the courtyard.

A group of curious onlookers had begun to gather around it.

“Oi!” I yelled, breaking into a jog. “Get away from it!”

They all jumped at the sound of my voice, no doubt still on edge from the unexpected goddamn _explosion_, but obeyed my order, nonetheless.

When I arrived by the wall, Daryl jogged up beside me, a look of concern on his face. “The hell was it?”

“Fucked if I know,” I responded, taking another deep breath before scrunching my nose at the bitter smell hanging in the air. “Smells like booze.”

Daryl nodded in agreement. “Smells like ‘shine.”

I felt my expression go from curious to exasperated in a matter of seconds as I turned to look at him.

He tilted his head to the side in question.

“Fucking Malcom,” I breathed, not waiting for the understanding to dawn before I stepped forwards, through the hole in the wall, pulling my shirt up to cover my nose and mouth.

The inside of what used to be one of the classrooms we’d reworked into a secondary common-room was still smouldering. Bits of snapped metal were scattered around the room haphazardly, the smoke drifting upwards from their rough edges dancing with the mortar dust that was slowly descending upon the ground from the air above. A small fire burnt upon the edge of the sofa in the centre of the room, a flame no bigger than my head, licking across the fabric of the covering.

I walked over, cautious of my footing, and – after making sure Daryl was too busy looking elsewhere to notice – slapped it with my bare hand until it extinguished.

“Malcom?” Daryl called, bending over near the crumbling hole in the wall to lift up a severed section of copper wiring. His bright eyes met mine through the murky room and he pursed his lips in a disappointed frown.

“Mal?” I yelled, turning in place to further survey the room. There was no burnt husk of a body lying around anywhere, so it was easy to assume he’d somehow sheltered himself. But where? “Mal, you stupid bastard! Where are you?”

“H-here,” came a shaken voice from somewhere to my left.

I spun toward it, slowly moving toward the sound of panted breaths through the smoky room. A wooden table sat upturned beside the small lounge area, bits of blackened wood on the surface indicating that it had been flipped before the initial blast rather than by it.

Daryl appeared by my side a moment later, the red cloth he usually kept in his back pocket securely tied around his lower face. His eyes were inquisitive as he jerked his head toward the table.

“You hurt, mate?” I asked, continuing my slow approach.

“I don’t – I don’t think so.”

When I rounded the edge of the table, I found Malcom sitting huddled in a ball, back pressed against the underneath of the small dining table. He was shaking, eyes wide and panicked, grey hair coated in a thick dusting of mortar and flakes of shattered brick.

Daryl stepped forwards first, reaching down to offer his hand to the older man, pulling him up onto his feet. He had to grip his shoulders in order to keep him steady whilst I stepped up and gave him a thorough once over.

There was no blood, no indication that he’d taken any blunt force, either. The guy was definitely suffering from shock, that was for sure, and he’d likely have irritated lungs for a while, but other than that, he seemed… okay. Not okay enough for me to slap him, like I kind of wanted to, but okay enough to walk out of the room without much assistance.

It had happened almost exactly as Daryl and I had assumed it had. The idiot had been trying to brew his own moonshine and had miscalculated, causing an explosion. Luckily, no one had been drastically injured by the sudden shower of sharp brick, but the irresponsibility was not something we could overlook.

We kept Malcom in the corner cell for the night whilst the council convened to discuss our options. Unsurprisingly, Hayden wanted him thrown to the fencers, but Hershel had thought it perhaps too harsh a punishment for such an older gentleman. The poor guy wouldn’t last a day out there in the hot sun.

In the end, after a gruelling two-hour debate, Malcom himself was the one to decide his fate. He elected to join Daryl and I on our run to the hardware store down in the nearby township to find something to use to fix the hole he’d made. Neither Daryl nor I were particularly hot on the idea, but Hershel and the others had thought it a good alternative. So, it was decided. Tomorrow, we’d take Malcom out on a run, and hope for the best.

#

“I’m not trying to be the bad guy here, man,” I breathed in exasperation as Malcom stared disdainfully at the passenger side door of the truck. It was barely even dawn and, already, I wanted to hit something. “You almost took out half the damn wall with that fucking thing.”

He remained silent, pouting like a child, arms crossed over his chest.

God. Malcom used to be such a mild-mannered man, one of the politest people in the entirety of Woodbury. I’d never even heard him raise his damn voice. How had that man become this sullen, bitter human in front of me?

“I didn’t blow it up on purpose,” Malcom snapped. “Not everyone has ill intentions.”

“The kids were playin’ out there, jackass,” Daryl hissed from where he leant against his bike, a few paces in front of us. “The hell were ya thinkin’?”

Malcom opened his mouth to no doubt snap something none-too-kind but seemed to think twice when I stepped closer to him, tilting my head to regard the man with a cocked brow. He took a sudden deep breath, reaching up to grasp the golden locket that hung loosely around his frail neck.

My anger fizzled out and died.

His wife’s locket. We’d fetched it from her body, back during the early days of the Merger, when we had brought all those who had been gunned down by the Governor back home to be buried. She rested now beside his brother, Roger, who had been alongside her the moment they’d both perished.

I looked up at Malcom, seeing past the seething bitterness on the surface to the pain and grief he hid beneath. Everything almost fell into place.

Grief made us do strange things, sometimes, that was true. His brother had been what Merle referred to as the “Resident Moonshine God” back in Woodbury. It had been his handiwork that we’d all indulged in – some of us more feverishly than others. I understood why Malcom would attempt to mimic his brother. It was his way to grieve him. To honour him, even.

I suddenly felt as if I’d gone too hard on the guy. After all, we were all still feeling the effects of the Governor’s actions. Some more than others.

Michonne, Daryl, and I often found ourselves outside the protective fences of the prison, still searching for a sign that he was still out there. She often went alone, whilst Daryl and I remained together. Sometimes we’d join up, but no matter what we did, or how much I allowed my senses to truly open up… we found nothing.

Which, of course, frustrated a lot of people. And frustration and grief do not often mix well.

“I did it just like he did,” Malcom said after a moment, miserably looking to the ground. “Everything was the same. I don’t understand what happened.”

I felt my chest give a sympathetic squeeze. Meeting Daryl’s gaze, I waved subtly for him to simmer down, and he returned the gesture with a slight nod and a step back toward his bike. Turning back to Malcom, I sighed. “I know, okay? I know. No one thinks you blew the thing up on purpose, Mal. We just want you to understand what you did that was wrong.”

His gaze slowly lifted to mine. “I get it.”

“But those kids were playing out there, you know?”

Malcom squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before nodding. “I know.”

“You’re damn lucky none of ‘em got hurt,” Daryl chimed, his voice no more than a grunt. He wasn’t so quick to forgive the guy for his mistake.

“I’m trying to fix it,” Malcom all but whimpered, glancing across to the man leaning against his motorbike.

“What a saint,” Daryl snorted.

“_Oi_,” I hissed, giving him a hard look.

He let out a sign through his nose and turned his head away, looking out toward the gate with a clenched jaw.

“I appreciate you volunteering to help us,” I stated with a small nod. “We need to patch the wall before autumn, especially if our populace keeps growing the way it is now. I mean, before fall. Whatever.”

The old hardware store a few towns over had been mostly picked clean of essentials, yet the yard out back had been left untouched by Woodbury, as we’d had plenty of building supplies within the town. So long as no one else had touched it, I was pretty sure I remembered the yard being full of materials such as brick and stone. Since Hershel and the rest of the council had decided it was best for Daryl and I to accompany Malcom on the trip to gather the materials needed to fix what he broke, the man had been nothing but an irritable child until now. At this point, it was honestly lucky snappy little remarks were all Daryl was throwing his way.

“So, how about you get in the damn truck, and we all go get stoned, huh?” I asked with a smirk.

Daryl snorted a laugh that was more directed _at_ me than with me as he mounted his bike, shaking his head at my lame joke.

Malcom’s chuckle was somewhat forced, but it was still nice to hear as he walked over to the side of the truck and slid into the passenger seat, this time _without_ complaint.

#

The hardware store on the outskirts of the abandoned town looked almost picturesquely dilapidated.

It was as if someone had done it on purpose, staged it to look exactly what you think a run-down store in the midst of an apocalypse would look like. The partially boarded windows were covered in graffiti that read things like “Stay Out” and “We Have Nothing, Go Away” and, to the right, was a smashed in door, bent partially off its hinges. And then, there was the smell.

Death and decay. Rotting wood. Neither of which were exactly pleasant to my overly sensitive nose.

I pulled up onto the curb, Daryl’s bike coming to a stop atop the footpath behind me.

Both Malcom and I slid out of the truck, stepping around to the front. He looked up at the hardware store with a scowl. “We have to go in there?”

I could hear the shuffling footsteps, the gargled moans coming from inside. From sound alone, I counted only seven biters. Nothing Daryl and I couldn’t handle. The problem was, of course, nowadays there seemed to be biters that made next to no sounds whatsoever. It was almost as if they went on pause until something stimulated their senses. Those ones were harder to detect and had led to quite a few too many close calls.

“Stay in the middle,” Daryl stated, pulling the crossbow from his shoulder. “I got front. Syn, take the back.”

“Aye, aye,” I remarked with a mock salute before pulling the twin knives from my belt.

Daryl lifted his crossbow to eye level as he stepped over the shattered glass pane and the bent frame of the door. Malcom’s hands shook as he clutched his mallet, stepping in behind Daryl, swallowing back against his fear. I could almost hear his heartbeat thundering from here. After Malcom’s back had disappeared through the doorway, I followed, keeping my knives raised.

We made our way through the first aisle, clearing the door biters silently. Daryl pulled the arrow from the first one and used it to piece the skull of the second one as he passed it by. Malcom watched the body fall, gripping his mallet tighter and tighter.

The darkness settled over us almost like a physical presence, mixed with the choking dust floating through the air, disturbed by movement. Daryl lifted the bandana hanging loosely around his throat, pulling it up over his mouth as he turned out of the first aisle and into the second. I continued to breathe through my nose, despite the smell, in an effort to avoid swallowing the dust as we moved. Malcom stepped into the second aisle, spotting the packets of powdered mortar sitting on the bottom down in the middle if the shelving. He tapped Daryl on the shoulder in order to point it out.

Silently, Daryl nodded, gesturing for Malcom to grab them. He and I stood guard over the man as he grunted at the effort, pulling bag after bag from the shelf and onto the dirty tile floor.

I threw one of my knives at an oncoming biter, stepping forward to catch the handle before the undead bastard even had a chance to hit the ground. Behind him, another biter stepped forward, his uneven footfalls causing him to trip over his buddy’s body. I barely even needed to move. The stupid thing fell face-first into my lifted knife.

I heard Daryl’s crossbow fire, heard him grunt as he loaded another arrow. Two more biters dropped in front of him.

That was six. Where was the seventh?

Daryl turned to glance at Malcom, noting his progress before lifting his gaze to meet mine. He cocked a brow. I jerked my head toward the back series of aisles, where the shelves were pushed up against the wall. He nodded, pointed for me to keep an eye on Malcom, and then began to make his way silently down to the end of the store.

The whole thing was so similar to the way Merle and I used to interact, I felt my heart squeeze in my chest. He and his brother were barely alike, though in the ways they were, they were almost indistinguishable from one another. I knew he had learnt to hunt the same way Merle had, which likely gave reason as to why he and his brother interacted with me in much the same way during runs like these. Still, it made my chest ache just a little.

The one upside, I guess, was that I no longer had to listen to Merle’s horrendously terrible jokes. Or his sexist, racist, and otherwise ass-ist remarks. Daryl was much more controlled, quiet. He thought more often than he spoke, a quality I couldn’t help but find admirable, especially on the heels of his brother’s unfiltered mouth.

Malcom rose, straightening his back as he looked to me and gestured to the five bags of mortar in front of him. “Gonna need more than one trip.”

I nodded, bending down to collect one of the bags. Malcom watched me lift it up onto my shoulder with raised brows. It took me a second to realise they were probably supposed to be too heavy for me to lift so easily.

“Got a good core,” I remarked, using my spare hand to tap the tight muscles of my stomach.

Malcom just looked at me a moment longer before shaking his head, deciding it wasn’t worth questioning, and bending down to grab one of his own. The older man grunted in effort, barely able to lift it up to his chest.

Whoops.

Daryl returned a moment later, his unloaded crossbow gripped loosely in his right hand. “That all of them?”

I glanced around, straining my ears. “Sounds it.”

He nodded, slipping the crossbow onto his back before stepping toward me and reaching out to take the bag from my shoulder. I would have argued, but something within me often stopped my protests whenever Daryl made to do something nice for me. He pulled the bag from my shoulder, grunting at the weight of it as he pulled it up and onto his own.

I did my _absolute best _to force myself not to watch the biceps of his arm tensing as he strained to hold it in place.

The two of them began to make their way out, back to the truck, with me in tow, guarding their backs. Once we’d made two trips, it was apparent that we were alone, and I was allowed to help carry the last three bags back to the car.

“What else?” Daryl asked, looking over to Malcom. Sweat coated his brow, catching the strands of his dark hair that were growing just a tad too long stick to his forehead. Those arms of his glistened in the dull white light from the cloudy sky above.

Malcom shrugged. “The bricks themselves, I guess. Where would we find them?”

Daryl glanced to me for an answer.

I moved down to the end of the street and peaked around the corner. The store went down a couple of metres, the ending of it met by a wire fence with a green mesh covering it. I turned back to face Daryl, waving him down as I disappeared around the corner.

The fence went down an extra few metres, a nasty looking barbed wire curl atop it. A gate sat a few steps down from where the fence met the brick of the store’s side, locked up tight with a chain and padlock. Daryl met me on the sidewalk a few moments later, stepping forward to pull on the chain as if he thought it would magically break in his hands.

“We can jump it, right?” he asked, looking up at the barbed wire with shrouded eyes.

I let out a breath. “I probably could, yeah. But once I do, if the bricks are there, we’re going to need to get them over, too.”

“Can’t toss ‘em?” Daryl asked.

I snorted a laugh. “If you want to play catch with a bag of bricks, be my guest.”

Daryl shrugged, looking back down at the chain, the curve of his cheeks growing red.

Malcom arrived then, putting his hands on his hips and sighing. “Looks locked up pretty tight.”

I stepped forward and reached out to grab the chain, intent on checking out the padlock. Some of the older ones were easy to pick with nothing more than a simple bra wire. I didn’t particularly want to ruin a perfectly good bra, but if it were between that and the possibility of taring the rest of my clothes, not to mention my skin, on that barbed wire, I’d choose to ruin the bra.

But the moment my fingers touched the metal of the chain, I felt a sharp burn singeing my skin. I recoiled quickly with a surprised intake of breath, looking down at my fingertips with a scowl. They were red, the top layer of skin practically burnt off.

“Fucking iron,” I hissed under my breath.

Daryl stepped up to me. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I answered, shaking my hand to cool the burning sensation from the tips of my fingers. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just, uh… Never mind.”

The whole prospect of a metal allergy was not an excuse I hadn’t used before, but the more I was forced to say it aloud, the more idiotic it sounded. People brought it, mostly because why would I lie about something so oddly specific, but it still made me internally cringe at the thought.

“We could use my jacket to cover the barbed wire,” Malcom offered as he begun pulling the denim from his frame.

I held up a hand to stop him. “Wait. Just… give me a second.”

Without another word, I lowered myself down into a crouch and looked up at the underneath of the padlock. It had to be about six or so years old, judging from the rust coating the once-silver keyhole. Easy to pick.

The iron chain, however? Not so easy. I’d have to avoid touching it.

“Alright. I got this.” I flashed Daryl and Malcom a grin. “If you’re shy, I suggest looking away.”

And with that, I reached up beneath my shirt and began to pry the wire from the support of my bra. Malcom looked away first, reaching up to clutch his wife’s locket as he spun on his heel. Daryl took a second, either out of shock or indecision, before he jerked slightly to the side and turned to look up to the corner from where we’d come.

“The hell you doin’?” he asked, his voice slightly higher than usual.

“Just, trust me.” It took a moment or two longer than I would have liked, but I eventually pulled the stupid thing from the fabric of my bra and let my shirt fall back down over my muscled, tattooed stomach. With a small sound of victory, I knelt down in front of the gate and grabbed the padlock tentatively by the body.

Daryl must have turned back around because I felt his presence beside me suddenly as he crouched to watch. He was standing partially in my light, but I didn’t complain.

Bending the wire in half, I used one section to pry the pins whilst twisting with the other. After a few moments of fiddling, the lock popped open.

Daryl let out a breathy laugh. “Well, I’ll be. Girls got skills.”

I straightened, pulling the lock from the chains with a triumphant grin. “And don’t you ever forget it, Little Dixon.”

He hated it when I called him that, but he let it slide just this once as he reached out to pull the chain from the opening of the gate. It fell to the floor with a _clink_ and one section of the gate began to swing inwards. Daryl pushed it until it struck the brick wall of the store.

Inside, we were greeted by the welcomed site of _bricks_. Well, stones. There were several different types, each varying in size and colour, piled up in aisles that ran the entire length of the yard. At the end, there were several small planters along the opposite wire fence, within which I could see the distinctly vibrant red of a fully-grown tomato.

My heart almost stopped in my chest. “That’s a tomato.”

Daryl paused in his surveying of the area to look at me. “A what?”

“Tomato. Look.” I pointed to it.

Daryl’s smile grew when he spotted it. “You mean a _to-may-ta_.”

“That’s what I said.”

He looked back at me, the grin still on his face. “You said _to-mah-to_.”

“Don’t make fun of my accent.” I pouted at him, but the expression was short lived. A smile pulled at the corners of my lips without my permission and a laugh escaped me.

Daryl laughed with me before Malcom stepped between us and passed into the yard beyond the gate.

I reached out to grab his shoulder, pulling the keys for the truck out of my back pocket and handing them to him. “Bring the truck ‘round. We’ll load it up.”

He nodded and did as I asked while Daryl and I began making our way down the aisles of bricks and stones. While I cared little what colour brick we brought back, I knew we needed something of a similar size if it were going to keep the autumn rain and winter chill on the outside of the wall. It was harder than it sounded. After all, neither of us had had the forethought to bring one of the partially exploded bricks with us to get an idea of the size. I hadn’t even known they came in varying sizes. My idea of bricks was that they were all just… the same. Everywhere. Universally. Apparently, I was wrong.

“’Bout these ones?” Daryl asked, lifting a grey brick from one of the piles in the aisle across from mine.

I narrowed my eyes as I inspected it, at the size difference between his hand and the brick itself. “Nah. Too big.”

He shrugged, taking my word for it, and put the brick back.

“I mean, if we can fit it, why don’t we take back a bunch?” I asked as I walked, looking through the single cobblestones and the pile of funky, curvy bricks. “My room could use an updo.”

Daryl snorted. “Gonna brick up the door, stop everyone peakin’ in?”

“I was thinking more of an elegant stone archway,” I answered. “Make the cage door seem less unappealing. Oh! A bed-frame with a fancy headboard. Or – and bear with me on this – a chair.”

“A chair?” Daryl echoed, questioningly.

“Hell yeah. Build the frame, steal a cushion from somewhere. Boom. Chair.”

“Where’d you put it?” he asked, reaching down to pick up another brick, holding it up for me to see.

I shook my head. Still too big. “In the corner of my room, obviously, where it will definitely fit in my imagination.”

He snorted again. “Brick chair ain’t gonna be too comfortable.”

“Not like I’ll get much time to sit on it, anyway,” I dismissed with a grin.

Daryl nodded in understanding. Neither of us got much time to do anything these days. If we weren’t out here, looking for the Governor or on a run, we were on watch. I almost spent more time with Daryl on the daily than I ever did with Merle. Neither of us seemed to mind, though. At least, I don’t think he did. He wasn’t talkative, like his brother, which meant we both seemed to settle into comfortable silences more often than not. It was a nice change. Despite my obvious love of for my own voice, I did enjoy not having to constantly be at the top of my game. Silver tongued or not, sometimes talking was a chore.

“What about this?” Daryl asked, lifting a red brick from the pile in front of him.

It looked almost perfect. I nodded. “Yeah. That’ll probably do it.”

Neither of us had much of an idea how much we were going to actually need, so we elected to take the whole pile. Worse case, we could use the remaining bricks to solidify the outer fence. Those wooden posts would only last so long.

Malcom backed the truck in through the gate, pulling to a stop at the beginning of the closest aisle while Daryl and I began loading up armfuls of bricks and carrying them down.

The sound of solid rock hitting the metal tray of the truck must have masked their footsteps. It’s the only valid excuse I have as to why I didn’t notice them until they were nearly on top of us.

I was partway through piling up another armful when my ears finally caught the sound of quietened footfalls on the outskirts of the fence. They were around the back, where the fence gave way to a small alley. It wasn’t the dead. The footsteps were too precise, too purposeful. It was people.

I didn’t let up on anything. They were walking around slowly, toward the street where the car was partially hanging out in the open. We had a few moments. I slowly began to put the bricks back, taking my time until Daryl returned to my side to collect a handful more.

I caught his eye and shook my head, placing the last brick down and lifting my hand to press a finger to my lips. Pointing toward the fence, we stood silently, listening. I was unsure if he could hear them, too, but considering how close they were I assumed he could.

Slowly, he pulled the crossbow from his back and gestured for Malcom to hide behind the tray of our truck.

We both stepped cautiously backwards until we were at the end of the aisles of bricks, ducking behind one of the piles on either side.

I pulled my knives free and looked to Daryl.

He touched his ear with his forefinger and pointed in the direction of the open gate. _Will you hear them come in?_

I nodded.

He tightened his grip on the crossbow with one hand, using his other to begin counting up from one. Once he got to five, I nodded. That was how many footsteps I heard.

His expression indicated just how irritatingly unfair he thought those numbers were as he let out a silent sigh.

I wasn’t too concerned. I could do five.

The air settled into a stale silence, broken only by the even shuffles of their footsteps as they tried to quietly approach the open gate. I heard the shift in sound as they stepped from the concrete sidewalk into the dirt yard.

Daryl was watching me, waiting for the signal. I didn’t give it to him straight away, holding back until I heard the fifth set of footsteps shift from concrete to dirt before giving him the nod.

Before we had the chance to stand, one of them spoke.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

It was a man, his voice deep and hoarse, at odds with his light, joking tone. He had to be one of the closest pairs of footsteps.

“We know you’re here. We just want to talk.”

Something in his tone indicated they _did not_ just want to talk.

I heard a click. The unmistakable sound of a gun’s safety. Their footfalls were slightly faded, having chanced from solid ground to the dirt of the yard, but I could just about pinpoint where each of them were standing. The one speaking was the closest, having moved partway down the aisle between were Daryl and I were hiding.

“Come now,” the man called again. “We’re friendly. Promise.”

Daryl shook his head as I began to tense up, ready to rise from my hiding place. I paused, giving him a confused look. He just held his finger to his lips.

“We saw you rollin’ in,” the voice continued. “Saw that leggy blonde you got with you.”

Daryl’s expression hardened instantly, matching my own. A muscle in his jaw tensed.

“We just want some fun. Don’t need to be an issue between us men, right, boys?”

A sound of agreement came from a handful of different directions. That was all I needed. Their voices confirmed that I’d placed them in the right positions in my mind.

Daryl and I rose simultaneously.

His arrow pierced the skull of the closest man, the one that had been speaking, whilst my two knives sailed through the air, nailing the two men standing on the outside of the aisle to Daryl’s right.

The two on my side lifted their guns, partially taken aback by my sudden appearance. I grabbed one of the bricks from the pile I was hiding behind and tossed it at the one furthest from me as I jumped to the side. The man closest, a wiry thing, didn’t have enough time to squeeze the trigger before I was on top of him. I’d used the pile between us to gain height, spinning mid-air and planting a smooth round-house kick to his face. He collapsed to the ground.

I ducked down and scooped up his rifle whilst approaching the man I’d hit with the brick, pointing the barrel down at him before he had a chance to regain his footing.

He looked dazedly up at me, a red gash across the side of his forehead leaking blood down the curve of his cheekbone. Keeping the gun trained on him, I used my foot to kick his out of reach.

Malcom chose that moment to re-emerge, scuttling across the dirt and picking up the discarded gun, pointing it at the man I’d kicked.

Daryl approached behind me, crossbow raised, eyes on the man I was holding the gun on. “The hell you want?” he demanded in a rough voice.

The man blinked up at him, dazed and confused, slowly lifting his hands up with his palms facing us. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing came out.

I turned on the wiry boy behind us. “What about you, huh? Gonna talk?”

His hands were already lifted, the side of his face rapidly growing darker as a bruise began to mar the skin of his pronounced cheekbone. “I – I’m sorry. W-we were just following _him_.”

The guy jerked his head toward the man lying in the centre of the aisle with Daryl’s arrow through his skull.

“Seemed to me you were pretty happy to be following,” I remarked.

“You got more people?” Daryl demanded over his shoulder, keeping his crossbow trained on the other man. “A place?”

The wiry guy shook his head. Honestly, he couldn’t have been much older than twenty – barely a few years younger than me. I pursed my lips as I surveyed him. His frame was more than just wiry, it was almost malnourished. The hollows of his cheeks were darkened and there were black bags beneath his wide, terrified eyes. His pale skin, dotted with freckles, was coated in a thin sheen of dirt and sweat that seemed to coat even his thin, blond hair. These people didn’t have a camp, of that I was almost certain. This kid looked too sleep deprived, too dirty, to have anywhere to call safe.

As if in agreement with my thoughts, the guy shook his head in response to Daryl’s question.

“Was this all of you?” I asked, my voice gentler than it had been a moment ago.

The kid nodded. His heartbeat remained a constant thunderous current of panic, so loud I could hear it from where I stood. I believed him.

“Daryl,” I whispered.

He let the crossbow drop as he turned to look at the kid standing behind him, sparing me a curious glance.

“Ask him.”

His eyes widened. “Hell no. Didn’t you hear what that asshole said about –“

“Daryl,” I tried again, catching his gaze this time. We looked at each other for a moment as I silently conveyed my thoughts. The kid was run down and half staved. I didn’t doubt he’d be willing to latch onto Hitler himself if the lunatic had offered him food. It wasn’t entirely his fault.

Daryl let out a huffed breath through his nose before looking back to the kid. “How many walkers you killed?”

The kid blinked in surprise. “W-what?”

Daryl stepped toward him, getting a little too close for comfort as he repeated the question in a harsh voice. “How many damn walkers you killed, boy?”

“I-I don’t know. Like, maybe ten? They do all the killing.” He paused, glancing at the dead bodies littering the dirt floor. “Well, they did.”

“How many people you killed?” Daryl asked.

“N-none. I promise.” The kid looked between Daryl and I, deciding to settle his gaze on me, as if he figured I was less likely to kill him. Boy would he be surprised. “I hardly know how to work that damn thing.”

I looked down at the gun he was gesturing to with a cocked brow. Huh. The safety was still on.

Daryl took a deep breath, turning his attention from the boy and back to me. I gave him a nod, signalling my approval. Despite his apparent irritation at the idea, he nodded back at me, throwing his free hand toward the kid in a wild gesture.

“You deal with him. I got the other one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter - again, sorry it's rather long. After this one and the next, we'll be beginning with the happenings of Season 4! Excited?   
Also, just a little forewarning - I'll be going on Holidays later this week and may not be able to post next Monday. I know, I know, it's horribly sad, but I promise I'll do my best to do so!
> 
> As always, don't hesitate to leave a comment! They make me the happiest little fanfic writer in the world. 
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	25. A Small Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove, Daryl, and Malcom return back to the prison with more than just bricks in the trunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii guys! I'm back! So sorry I didn't find time to post during my holiday. It got pretty hectic.   
Anyway, please enjoy the new chapter. It ain't much, but the next chapter will begin with Season 4! :D

The kids name was Mason.

He was a nice enough guy, to be fair, and rode in the back of the truck with the bricks without complaint. Honestly, I doubted he would have complained if we’d strapped his ass to the roof, so long as we brought him to food. The other guy hadn’t faired so well.

Once he’d recovered from his head injury, he’d done nothing more than spit insults in our direction and threaten to “take your bitch out back and make a dog of her”. Malcom had had to physically restrain Daryl after that particular comment. I remained standing a fair distance from him, my mask of cool indifference the only thing hiding the cold rage inside me.

Once Malcom had Daryl partially calmed, taking him over to the side of the truck, I stepped up to the man who had proclaimed himself “Jorge” and slid my knife slowly up through the base of his chin, through his lower jaw, and up into his brain. Thankfully, none of them caught the sheer viciousness of that moment, but they turned back just in time to see his body fall to the ground by my feet.

Daryl met my gaze evenly. Malcom looked shocked. Mason still just looked scared.

I shrugged. “What? Did you want to bring him back, too?”

Malcom shook his head, looking to Daryl for back up. He didn’t give him any.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Malcom said.

“Yeah, she did,” Daryl sighed.

The older man turned to him, aghast. “_Why_?”

“Because he’d find us,” I stated simply, cleaning the knife on my jeans before sheathing it back in my thigh holster. “If we’d left him here and taken the kid, he wouldn’t have remembered us very fondly for that. And men like him don’t often leave well enough alone when they should.”

There was a moment of pause whilst I stepped past them both, pushing the lip of the tray back up and locking it in place.

“Not everyone is the Governor,” Malcom said, so softly I don’t think he’d actually intended for me to hear.

But I had.

I whirled on the old man, eyes colder than ice as I glared up at him. “And you’d be willing to take that chance, would you? Willing to put everything back home at risk for your own peace of mind?”

“Not all of us are comfortable with cold-blooded murder,” Malcom snapped.

“The Governor was,” I responded pointedly. 

That made him stutter slightly, his gaze dropping back to his boots for a moment as his hand came up to clutch that necklace. His knuckles turned white.

I didn’t wait around for him to put together a response. Turning in place, I gestured for the kid to get in the back and walked over to the driver’s side door. Daryl came up to the window as Malcom huffed something unintelligible and began to make his way around the back to the passenger’s side.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

I nodded. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He clenched his jaw but didn’t answer. We both knew why. But we both also knew that I didn’t particularly want to talk about it.

Malcom slammed the door shut once he’d climbed up beside me, begrudgingly handing me the keys.

I stuck them in the ignition and gave Daryl a small smile. “Keep up.”

He didn’t smile back, but nodded, stepping back to give us room to pull out of the yard. I waited for him to exit, my brows furrowing after a minute when I realised he was still inside.

Turning in place, I watched through the back window as he jogged up to the end of the aisles of bricks and grabbed the planter with the tomato in it from the fence. After collecting his arrow from the dead man’s face, he walked through the gate and began to make his way back up the street. I followed alongside him in the truck until he reached his bike, where he held the planter beneath one arm and started the bike with the other.

Was he really going to carry that thing the whole way back? Why?

I didn’t let myself give it much more thought.

#

Once we’d arrived at the gates, pulling to a stop in the designated area for our cars, Malcom slid free of the passenger’s seat with a grunt. He slammed the door for good measure and began walking off towards the cellblock, ignoring Daryl’s yell for him to come back.

I climbed out of the truck and walked across to the tray, looking up at the kid and ignoring Malcom’s retreat as if I could have cared less. “Nice ride?”

Mason grinned. “Had worse.”

I unlatched the lip of the tray and gestured for him to climb down. “Come on, then.”

Daryl’s bike shut off and he climbed off, resting the planter on the seat as he approached me. His eyes remained trained on the kid’s slight form as he climbed down from the tray. “You sure about this?” he asked quietly.

I nodded. “If it goes wrong, I’ll take all the blame. Wouldn’t want to tarnish your spotless rep, now, would we?”

Daryl just snorted a chuckle and lightly elbowed me while I grinned.

“This place is amazing,” Mason mused as he stood at the base of the truck, looking around at the fences and walls in awe. “I didn’t even know this was here.”

“Well, now you do,” I remarked. “And that knowledge comes with some responsibility, kiddo. Namely, don’t go blabbing to strangers about where you live.” 

Mason shook his head with fever. “Hell no.”

I chuckled lightly. “Alright. Let’s get you something to eat, huh?”

That perked him up. He nodded so hard I was worried his thin neck was going to snap with the movement.

After giving Daryl a nod goodbye, I began to lead Mason toward the main cellblock, where I knew Hershel was likely teaching his usual medics lesson. It was time to introduce a new face to the family.

#

I got barely two hours’ worth of sleep that night.

They’d stuck Mason in the bunk below mine and, my God, was that kid was a restless sleeper. Every few minutes, I’d feel the metal frame of the bunk shake as he turned over in his sleep. Usually, I’d be able to sleep through that, but I’d known before going to bed that I’d need to be up in a few hours to start my shift on watch. I never slept well knowing I only had a minimal amount to look forward to, and that, paired with my near ceaseless instinct to remain alert at all times, had made night-time in the cellblock its own kind of prison.

I was thankful that both Hershel and Tyrese had accepted Mason into the fold. The kid had made a pretty good impression, if somewhat awkward. He’d had his mouth partially full with a slice of venison when Hershel had made his way over, and he’d greeted the man without waiting or swallowing. Hershel, of course, had found that amusing. He shook the boy’s hand and asked him a whole manner of questions. The poor kid had barely had time to answer each one before the old man threw another his way. Still, it was better to be interviewed by Hershel than one of the others. Especially Hayden.

The vote on the kid was still out, however. We’d find out tomorrow if he could stay – on a probationary term. He’d need to pull his weight, which he seemed fine with, so long as he got a warm bed and a meal a day out of it.

I slid down from the top bunk silently, my bare feet hitting the concrete with nary a sound. My boots lay discarded in the corner and I stepped over to collect them, being sure to clear the cell door before I attempted to pull them on. The floor was cold. I shivered slightly as I reached back in to pull my leather jacket from the hook buried in the wall beside the door.

Mason didn’t so much as flinch at the sound of the metal door swinging closed.

The night air was crisp as I made my way across the courtyard toward the door to the watch tower. I had never been one for the cold. Even the slightest chill made me pull my leather jacket tight around my shoulders as I crossed the dark expanse of empty prison yard in utter silence.

It was eerie, to say the least. I’d always thought so. Being what I was, you’d think the dark wouldn’t unnerve me – and it didn’t, to a degree. My eyesight was better than most, enabling me to peer through shadows with greater ease, however… Well, being what I was, I knew there were worst things out there in the dark than just biters.

Still. The assassin in me knew better than to treat the shadows as an enemy. Darkness was, perhaps, my greatest ally. And that fact was the only thing that kept me from dwelling on the eeriness of the night as I made my way toward the western watch tower.

The door was partially open when I arrived, the hollow air within silent despite the fact I knew he was already up there. I cleared the spiralling stairs quickly and with ease, emerging at the top to find Daryl sitting on the outer balcony on one of the barely-held-together camper chairs we’d salvaged from the remnants of Woodbury. The empty chair next to him was all but calling my name.

I strode across the small enclosed room, passing the thin mattress and course blanket that lay in the corner, and stepped out into the cold night air.

As I sunk into the uncomfortable chair beside him, Daryl reached into the pocket of his loose jeans and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offering me one. He already had one upon his lips, unlit, as if he were waiting for me before he began smoking it.

“How kind of you,” I remarked as I pulled one free of the pack.

He snorted before lighting his. The zippo remained lit as he moved it toward me, using one hand to keep the flame safe from the chilling breeze as I leant forward and lit my own.

Snapping it closed, he put the lighter back into the pocket of his jeans and leant back into the chair with an exhale of smoke.

His crossbow sat beside him, as it so often did, and a rifle rested against the wall between us. We often only used it for the scope. It had never been fired. Not yet, at least. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, where I stuffed all those useless optimistic thoughts that sometimes sprung out of the rotting woodwork of my brain, I hoped it remained that way.

“You see it?” Daryl asked after a few moments of silence.

I turned my head toward him with a cocked brow. “See what?”

He gestured toward the edge of the balcony railing with the hand holding the lit cigarette. The material of the thick jacket he wore over his usual vest and torn-off-sleeve button up rustled loudly in the near silent air of the night.

I looked toward where he was gesturing. It took me a moment to spot it but, when I did, I let out a chuckle.

Hanging from the top of the metal railing by two silver hooks was the planter from the hardware store. The green vine drooped slightly forwards, pulled down by the weight of the two near full-grown tomatoes that had sprouted on either side of it.

“Hershel said it weren’t worth plantin’,” Daryl informed me.

I glanced back at him. He wasn’t looking in my direction, staring out into the darkened forest below as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “So,” I asked. “You thought to bring it up here? What, to give it a good view?”

The corner of his lip turned up slightly as he blew out the smoke. “The hell else was I gonna do with it?”

I pursed my lips, trying to hide my grin as I shrugged a shoulder.

As I took a drag of my smoke, Daryl straightened a little in his camper chair. “Ain’t like they’re ripe enough yet. Gonna need a few more days ‘fore they’ll be good to pick. Hershel might be able to use the seeds but, other than that, ain’t no one else want ‘em.”

“Ah,” I breathed with a wry grin. “They’re _our _tomatoes, then? Sorry – _to-may-tas_.”

My Southern accent was so flawless that Daryl looked at me with a furrowed browed look of surprise.

I just gave him a wide grin.

He shook his head with a humourful huff of breath, lifting his hand and taking another drag of his smoke.

I did the same whilst regarding his side-profile with a small smile. “So, we have a plant now, huh? A lot of responsibility there. Should we discuss a custody agreement or are we doing this as partners?”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, I’m happy with weekends,” I continued, looking over to the plant with a barely restrained grin. “Though, I think _Mato_ here deserves a say in it. It might stunt his growth if he’s forced to choose between the two of us.”

“My God,” Daryl breathed, though I could see the grin forming at the corners of his lips out of the corner of my eye.

“A good partnership would enable us to give him the right amount of love and care. We can take turns feeding him. I’ll do breakfast, you do dinner. Growing boy like him might need lunch, too. We can split that between days. What do you think, Little _Mato_?”

I looked to the plant, grinning wide, with every intention of making it look as if I honestly expected the plant to answer me.

Daryl was shaking his head when I turned back, silently laughing. I watched him for a moment, admiring the way his cheekbones stood out more prominently when his lips parted in a wide smile, the way his eyes scrunched slightly, narrowing as he laughed.

It took me a second to catch myself but the moment I did, I looked away from him, back down to the shadows within the forest below us. All but physically shoving that warm sensation in the pit of my stomach out of existence, I forced myself to keep my gaze from returning to him. Once the sounds of his breathy laugh subsided, I dared another look in his direction.

He turned to look at me at the same time.

“What to know something funny?” I asked, before either of us had a chance to make a moment out of our proximity.

Daryl nodded, a ghost of a smile still upon his thin lips.

My grin widened, lips slowly parting over my white teeth.

“What?” he asked after a moment, when it was clear I was struggling to keep my laughter from interfering with what I was trying to say.

“I fucking hate tomatoes,” I answered, pausing only a moment before losing my battle and bursting into unrestrained laughter.

Daryl watched me laugh for a moment, blinking once and turning his attention to the forest before his own shoulders began to shake.

The two of us laughed for a solid minute. Each time I was about to sober, I’d look to him and start up again, which would, in turn, make him laugh, too. It was a good moment. A good, pure moment that I knew would stick with me no matter what came next.

Even if what came next was the actual fucking _plague_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Once again, I'm so sorry for not posting until now.   
I really hope I didn't lose any of ya. Please, as always, leave a comment if you'd be so willing. It always makes me a happy camper. And thank you for reading!
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on site,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	26. An Echo of Doom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight months have passed since the trouble with the Governor. The Prison thrives beneath the rule of its council, but supplies are still needed. Synnove, Daryl, and their group head out to the storefront that had once been overrun in order to bring back much needed amenities to their people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi-ho, hi-ho, sorry I'm posting late. Still, as per usual, I hope you all enjoy!

The cold light of dawn rose over the trees, cutting through the murky, dark windows of the watch tower and casting a thick line of sunlight across my closed eyelids. I heard the soft sound of Daryl’s voice as he called my name, whispering for me to wake up, and felt my eyes squeeze shut in response. An irritated groan escaped me which succeeded only in making the man hovering over me laugh as he gently kicked my side.

“Come on,” he mused with a light chuckle.

“Early,” I grumbled in response.

He snorted. “Rick’s already out in the fields.”

“Well, clearly, Rick has lost his mind, hasn’t he?”

Daryl lowered himself into a crouch beside the mattress I lay upon, looking down at me with a bemused expression I could only just make out through my squinted eyes. Reaching out a hand, he pulled the coarse blanket from atop me, tossing it into a pile by my feet. “Get up. We’re takin’ that kid of yours on a run today, ‘member?”

I slowly slid up into a sitting position, lifting a hand to run it through my messy, white-blonde hair. “Stop calling him “my kid”.”

Daryl rose from his crouch. “He hangs off ya like a damn newborn. What else you want me to call him?”

“His name, perhaps?” I suggested with a smirk as I climbed up onto my feet, tying my hair up into a messy ponytail as I went.

Daryl snorted, turning toward the hatch that lead to the staircase.

“That’d be too much to ask, though, wouldn’t it?” I muttered to myself with a sigh as I followed behind him, rubbing sleep from my eye.

Ever since we’d brought Mason back to the prison, Daryl had treated him with varying amounts of mistrust and disdain. I didn’t really understand why. The kid had been nothing but a gem this past month. He’d worked his ass off to earn his place here and had been nothing but courteous to everyone he met. Sure, the poor guy followed me around like a lost puppy sometimes, and I’d lost count of the amount of times I’d caught him giving me heart-eyes from across the room, but seriously? He was harmless. Daryl’s issue with the guy was beyond my realm of comprehension.

We reached the courtyard in the midst of breakfast. Carol was standing behind the makeshift brick barbecue, slicing up pieces of the deer Daryl and I had caught the day before. As we walked through the pergola, a chorus of “good morning’s” greeted us from the men and women sitting on the picnic tables that had been built in front of the barbecue. Daryl, as per usual, seemed oddly thrown-off by the chipper greetings thrown in his direction. Carol and I shared a bemused grin as she handed the two of us a bowl of venison each.

“Just so you know,” she remarked with a grin. “I liked you first.”

I snorted a chuckle. “Don’t let them hear you say that. You’ll start a riot.”

Daryl, with half a mouthful of venison, grunted a half-hearted, “Shut up.”

Carol chuckled softly before turning around to look at the young kid standing off to the side, behind the second, still smoking barbecue. “Patrick,” she said, offering the carving knife to the kid. “Want to take over from here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pat responded earnestly.

He was a good kid, Patrick. Around Carl’s age, with dark hair and thick rimmed, round glasses. He’d been a permanent fixture in our “book-club” since he’d arrived, alongside his father a handful of months ago. The poor kid had always tread somewhat anxiously around both Daryl and I, as if he were afraid we’d bite him, though lately he’d begun to come out of that shy shell.

Case in point, a moment later as Daryl, Carol, and I were about to walk off toward the fence to speak privately, Patrick stuttered an inquisitive, “Mr Daryl, sir?”

Daryl turned to look at him with a thin brow cocked, fingers buried in his bowl of venison.

Patrick, in a somewhat shaky voice, said, “Mr Dixon, I just wanted to thank you for bringing that deer back yesterday.” He took another step toward the man, looking up at him with a bright, hero-worshipping smile. “It was a real treat, sir.”

Daryl’s gaze slid over to me over Pat’s head as he chewed his venison.

Patrick noticed this, glancing over his shoulder at me with a guilty frown. “Oh, and you too, Miss Jacques.”

I waved a dismissive hand. There was no way Daryl was getting out of this that easily.

Patrick turned back to him, extending a hand out toward the stoic redneck. “I’d – I’d like to shake your hand, sir.”

I watched with a small grin as he lifted his hand and very purposefully sucked the meat’s juices from each of his fingers, eyes fixed firmly on the young, anxious boy in front of him. Having thoroughly coated almost the entirety of his hand in saliva, he thrust it out and shook Patrick’s, somehow managing to maintain a straight face as he did so.

I had to turn my face to the side to stifle a laugh, my gaze meeting Carol’s, noting the smile on her face was stuck somewhere between disapproval and amusement.

Once the gross handshake was finished, Patrick looked as if he were about to faint from sheer excitement. He made his way over to Carol’s station almost in a daze, smiling to himself.

When Daryl fell into step beside Carol and I, I playfully nudged him with my elbow. “That was as adorable as it was gross.”

“Shut up,” he grunted, though the amused look in his eye warred with the red tinge of his cheeks.

“You’re like a local celebrity,” I continued, my grin widening as I stepped around to stand in front of him. “Really, I should just be honoured that you still deign to speak to us mere peasants, shouldn’t I?”

Daryl rolled his eyes for good measure, though that small smile pulling at the corner of his lips lessened the gesture quite a bit.

Carol let out a small sound. “Hey now. Don’t pretend like you’re not just as revered around here,” she remarked with a smile, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

“Fame and infamy are two very different things,” I responded with a smirk.

“Most of the men here would disagree,” Carol stated with a cheeky smile that made me snort a laugh.

I opened my mouth to make what would definitely have been an exceedingly inappropriate joke when the sound of my name being called from near the inner fence reached my ears. Turning in place, I spotted Rick standing by the gate that lead out to the fields, waving his hand and beckoning me over. My mouth pursed into a confused frown, but I lifted my own arm to signal that I was on my way before turning back to Carol and Daryl with an amused smirk.

“Maybe you’re right, Carol dear. It seems I am wanted by all, doesn’t it?” I remarked with a playful wink before turning on my heel and making my way toward Rick.

“Got that right,” I heard Carol whisper once she assumed I was out of ear shot.

There was a grunt from Daryl, as if she had jokingly elbowed him, and a somewhat sheepishly growled, “Shut up.”

“Syn,” Rick greeted once I’d met up with him by the gate. His smile was partly strained, though I could see that he was generally happy to see me.

“Ricky,” I responded with a bright grin.

He chuckled as he reached out to place his hand on the small of my back, beginning to gently lead me out of the gate and down the pathway toward the farmland. “I need your opinion on something.”

“Ask away.”

Rick remained silent for a few moments until we reached the edge of the pig pen, his gaze slowly drifting from me and out toward the fence, where his son stood with a group of other children. He and I’d had many conversations regarding his son over the past few months. I still hadn’t quite figured out what it was about me that made him so comfortable opening up about his concerns, but I was kind of glad he thought of me as a confidant. Perhaps it was because Carl and I got along so well. He was like the little brother I’d never had and ofttimes, when his father’s words went ignored, Michonne and I were the only ones the damn kid would listen to.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, once the silence had grown a little too stretched for my liking. Reaching out, I softly laid my hand on Rick’s shoulder, leaning slightly forwards and across his frame to catch his gaze once again.

He blinked once, his eyes turning away from his son and back to me as he let out a small sigh. “Violet’s sick. Least, I think she is.”

I blinked once, feinting ignorance. “Violet? Who, pray tell, would that be?”

Rick gave me a slightly bemused side-eye. “I know he named ‘em.”

“Oh.” With a small shrug, I turned back toward the pig pen and looked down at the one Carl had affectionately dubbed “Violet” with a small frown. She was lying, partially resting against the wooden fence that surrounded her pen, breathing rather heavily.

Now, I’d be the first to admit that I knew practically jack-shit about farm animals. Hershel was the one he should have been asking, if he wanted a professional opinion, yet I knew that wasn’t really what he was after. He wanted to ask my opinion, sure, but what he really wanted to know was how to lessen the blow when he had to tell his son that the poor thing was likely going to die.

He’d become increasingly concerned with Carl’s mental wellbeing as of late. A fair worry, I’ll admit, as the kid had basically committed cold-blooded murder not so long ago and that kind of thing tends to fuck with one’s head. He refused to admit that the kid he’d killed hadn’t been a threat, despite Hershel and Beth’s testimonies that stated otherwise. It had taken me almost two months to finally convince the kid to admit it to himself and talk him through the guilt and self-loathing that often came with one’s first kill.

Rick’s gratitude had been the strangest thing to come of it, if I were being honest. After all, the only reason I was able to help Carl was because I’d been a handful of years younger than him when I’d completed my first contract. An unfortunate side effect of moral self-awareness when it came to living life as an assassin was my familiarity with both guilt and self-loathing. I might have struggled to deal with those on a daily basis, but I had committed myself to ensuring Carl didn’t suffer the same fate as I.

I had opened my mouth to give Rick some – what I imaged was – sage advice when a horrifically foul smell reached my nostrils. Before I could stop myself, I flinched a step away from the pig pen, shaking my head and scrunching my nose as I chocked on the words I’d been about to say. My hand came up to cup the lower half of my face in a desperate attempt to block the smell as I retreated back another few steps.

Rick’s concern was immediate. He moved toward me, hand outstretched to grip my shoulder as his face contorted into a troubled frown. “Syn? What’s wrong?”

My brows furrowed as I looked up to him, my own confusion mirrored in his gaze. Slowly, I lowered my hand, taking a cautious sniff to ensure that I was far away enough from whatever the hell that smell had been for it to have dissipated. “I, uh… I don’t know.” Straightening from my slightly hunched position, I looked back down at Violet, my mouth twisted downwards in a mixture of concern and unease. “I thought I smelt something rotten for a second there.”

Rick’s head tilted ever-so-slightly to the side. “Rotten?”

I pursed my lips as I nodded. It was the only way I knew how to describe the smell, though it had been so sudden and overpowering that I couldn’t for certain say where it had come from. If I were a betting woman – which I am – my first pick would be the pig.

“I’d separate her from the others, if I were you,” I remarked, gesturing towards Violet. “Something’s not… right… with her.”

Rick watched me curiously for a few seconds before he looked back toward Violet, his frown deepening. “Should we…?”

I sighed, glancing over at Carl. The poor kid had grown an almost instant attachment to the piglets when we’d first brought them back. He’d named each of them and spent a rather large portion of his time outdoors by the edge of the pen, reading comics or watching his father work in the fields. And I’d only encouraged it. Honestly, I’d thought making some kind of… emotional connection would help with his mental strains. Thankfully, it seemed to have helped somewhat, but now I was concerned this would only negate his progress.

Rick obviously shared the same concerns. “I can’t – I can’t just –“

I took a cautious step forwards, careful not to breathe through my nose as I reached up and placed a comforting hand on Rick’s shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. We were close enough that I could feel his body warmth and see the flecks of silver in those bright blue eyes of his as he gazed back at me, a crease between his brows.

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t just butcher her.” Rick shook his head with a deep sigh. “What would I tell Carl?”

I squeezed his shoulder again and his hand came up to grip my own. “Hey. I’ll do it, okay?”

Rick snorted. “He’d think that’s worse.”

I pouted my lips in thought for a second before letting out a long breath. “Okay. Look, I’m going on a run later today with Daryl and the others. You know, that damn fenced in store on the corner? They’ve got a pharmacy section.”

The small intake of breath told me Rick knew what I was implying before I’d even had a chance to finish my thought. “You wanna poison her?”

“It’s more humane than butchering her,” I whispered back to him. Somewhere, deep inside me, I couldn’t believe I was having this discussion about a damn _pig_. I barely hesitated this much when killing _people_.

He took a long moment and an even longer breath before asking, in a defeated voice, “How?”

“I can grab some methadone and grapefruit juice,” I answered, without pause. In hindsight, I probably should have pretended to think on that a little longer, but thankfully Rick didn’t seem to notice how quickly I’d thought up that option.

“Why the juice?”

I gave him a tight smile. “Because it’s refreshing and sweet and may or may not metabolise certain medications within the blood stream at a potentially fatally rapid rate.”

Rick blinked. “Oh.”

I slipped my hand out of his grip and gave his back a small, comforting pat before taking a step away from him. “Stop stressing so much. You’re a farmer now – you’re meant to be calm and wise, remember?”

He snorted a chuckle and gave me a soft smile. “Well, I’m glad I’ve got you to remind me.”

I gave him an overdramatic bow as I backed away toward the gate, grinning. “My upmost of pleasures, Farmer Rick.”

#

“Oh, you deign to grace us with your ethereal presence, do you?” I called out playfully when I spotted Michonne making her way towards our little group.

We were partway through prepping for our run, packing the cars and dealing out weaponry. I was leaning against the blue hatchback, watching Daryl carrying a crate of ammunition from the door of our storeroom toward the ute – I mean _truck_ – when Michonne came striding over with a bemused grin.

“Only to those I feel are worthy,” she responded witfully, opening her arms to welcome me into a hug.

I held her tightly for a moment before stepping back and giving her a curious look. The question needn’t leave my lips for her to already know what it was. She shook her head, her once bright smile twisting into a disappointed frown.

No luck. The Governor was still no more than dust to us.

After a pause, Michonne plastered a grin on her face and gestured to our crew. “Open to interlopers?”

“I don’t see why not,” I remarked, slapping her shoulder playfully.

“Hey! You just gonna stand there, lookin’ pretty, or you gonna help?” Daryl called out from the back of the truck.

I turned to look at him, pointing between Michonne and I. “Which one? Me, pretty – or she, pretty?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer, merely snorting and shaking his head as he walked back toward the storeroom door to collect another crate of supplies.

I pouted at Michonne. “Why won’t he play with me anymore?”

She chuckled and wrapped an arm around my shoulder as we began to follow along behind Daryl to collect the rest of the crates.

We were packed and ready to go relatively quickly after that. Our group was one of the biggest we’d ever taken out in one go – nine of us, including myself.

Mason and Zach were both around the same age and got along rather decently – enough to divert the young man’s attention from me, thankfully. However, as soon as Beth came out from the prison’s doors to say a fond farewell to her boyfriend, Mason was left to his own devices – which meant he gravitated immediately toward me.

The kid was sweet, in a naïve sort of way, and it wasn’t as if I didn’t care for him at all. He just… It was like having a cousin, slightly younger than you, that idolised everything you said and did, and followed you around like you were the goddamn messiah.

You cared about them – but space was good.

“Do you think I’ll get to kill a biter today?” Mason excitedly asked as he trotted along beside me.

“Walker,” I corrected. “And yeah, probably.”

It was a mystery to me why he found the prospect so exciting. He’d been killing walkers on the fence for weeks now – it wasn’t exactly a new thing to him.

“I’ll get to test your training!” he chirped, reaching out to touch my arm, surprising me enough to almost drop the damn crate of waterskins.

“Remember when I said that word – “discretion” – and you assured me that you knew what it meant?” I asked, coming to a stop before the hood of the truck. Near the edge, where the tray lay open, Beth and Zach were having one of those newly in love couple chats. Not that it was any of my business, but my damn hearing made it difficult _not _to eavesdrop sometimes.

Mason’s grin didn’t even falter as he nodded his understanding, snapping his fingers and pointing at me with a gleeful, “Oh, right! Our little secret!”

I gave him a wide smile and nudged him with my elbow. “Atta boy.”

“Like a damn romance novel over here,” Daryl remarked as he passed by, glancing between Beth, Zach, Mason and I with a cocked brow before dumping his last crate into the tray.

Zach snorted an amused “shut up”, whilst Beth just gave him a charming grin as she strode past on her way the fields. Mason seemed to be too busy auditioning for the role of the next Red Skull with how much he was blushing to really think of a comeback.

Walking over to the truck, I put my crate down beside Daryl’s and gave him a pleading side-eye. “Ask me to ride with you.”

He blinked in surprise before glancing over his shoulder at Mason, who was leaning against the side of the truck, seemingly waiting on me, and smirked as he looked back to me. “Nah.”

I opened my mouth into an “O” shape in shock.

Daryl stared evenly back at me for approximately two seconds before his face broke out into a grin. “Wanna ride?”

The question was asked notably louder than his original rejection and I saw Mason jerk to attention in my peripherals. “Why, how kind of you to offer. Don’t mind if I do.”

#

“I think I got it.”

Daryl and I took a seat on the edge of the window sill by the front entrance and looked up almost simultaneously at Zach as he came to a stop before us, grinning down at Daryl with a bemused glint in his eye.

Michonne leant her shoulder against the concrete wall beside the window, her brows furrowing slightly in confusion. “Got what?”

I snorted a chuckle.

“I’ve been trying to guess what Daryl did before the turn,” Zach answered, lifting a hand to rub his chin thoughtfully.

“He’s been trying to guess for, like, six weeks,” Daryl said with a small snorted chuckle.

I laughed softly, crossing a leg over the other and leaning back against the glass behind me. Distantly, I could hear the distinct echo of shuffling feet and guttural grunts – the telltale sounds of walkers. There were only a few of them inside, that much I could tell – nothing our group couldn’t handle.

However… That odd, secondary echo I could only just hear over the walkers on the inside of the store… _That_ troubled me. It was near impossible to place, somehow both distant and near at the same time; muffled, yet clear.

I made the decision – albeit not a great one – not to mention it to the others.

“I’m pacing myself,” Zach explained, glancing at Michonne with what I can only describe as a cheeky grin. “One guess a day.”

“And by “pacing himself” he really means “prolonging his inevitable defeat”,” I remarked with a smirk, wiggling my brows at Daryl, whose face split into a grin.

“Hey now, hey now,” Zach mused. “I’ll get it eventually.”

Daryl snorted, waving at him to go ahead whilst Michonne and I watched on with matching amused smiles.

“Well,” Zach began, clearing his throat. “The way you are at the prison, you being on the council, being able to track, helping people, but still being kind of… surly…”

I snorted at that, unable to stop myself.

_Daryl? Surly_? _Well, that’s adorable_.

I didn’t even need to look in the aforementioned surly man’s directions to know that he was probably gazing up at Zach with narrowed eyes and a cocked brow.

“Big swing here,” he continued, waving his arms out and striking a kind of pose, as if he were trying to materialise the truth with the power of his sheer confidence. “Homicide cop.”

It took Michonne and I all of two seconds to break out into a fit of giggles.

Daryl glanced between us, lips pursed into a frown. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Michonne sighed as she sobered. “Makes perfect sense.”

He looked back up to Zach, shrugging his shoulders as he said, with a perfectly straight face, “Actually, the man’s right.”

I felt my brow raise slightly before I had a chance to control my expression, a slight smile tugging at the corner of my lip. “That so?” I asked, knowing full well that it was not, in fact, so.

Daryl nodded, face still entirely serious. “Undercover.”

Zach laughed, though it was an uncertain sound. “Come on. Really?” He glanced between Michonne and I as if gauging our reactions, trying to determine our thoughts on Daryl’s admission.

“Yep,” Daryl assured him, nodding once for effect. He turned slightly to the side, lifting his hand and running it along his chin with a shake of his head. “I don’t like to talk about it. Lot of heavy shit, you know?”

I turned my head away, hiding it in my shoulder whilst I fought back against the urge to burst out laughing. My eyes met Michonne’s, who looked to be having just as much difficult keeping her laughter to herself as I was. Unfortunately, Michonne struggling not to laugh only made the whole thing funnier to me, and I lost control, snorting out laugh which she quickly mimicked.

The two of us laughed for a few seconds before I caught sight of a dejected looking Zach, still standing before us, arms crossed over his chest.

Slowly, I managed to sober, looking up at the poor kid with a grin. “Nice try, kiddo.”

Mason, who had been helping Sasha unload some of the empty crates for our supplies, began to make his way over to us as Zach gave me a challenging look. “Oh, yeah? What about you, huh, Miss Mysterious?”

I straightened my back, the corner of my mouth lifting into a cocky smirk. “Oh, honey. If you can guess what I used to do for a living, I will give you _everything_ I own.”

Mason came to stand beside Zach, looking down at me with wide eyes. “Everything? Even the knives?”

I nodded once. “Even the knives.”

Michonne gave me an interested look, brows raised. “This should be interesting.”

Daryl turned his body to face me slightly, a slight grin on his lips. I knew he had his theories about my past. He may have kept them to himself, but I knew he’d thought about it before, especially since I knew all about his thanks to his obnoxiously talkative brother.

“Five guesses,” Zach announced.

“Three,” I responded, my tone leaving no room for further haggling.

The kid lifted his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright.”

Silence stretched for a long moment whilst Zach tapped his chin in thought.

I couldn’t help but smile smugly, shaking my head almost in time with Zach’s little chin taps. There was absolutely no way in hell he would guess the truth. It almost felt cruel allowing him to try.

“Okay. Hear me out,” Zach began, lifting his hands with his palms open, facing us. “You’re smart, you know how to talk, you’re tough as damn nails, and you know your way around a courtroom, right?” He took a dramatic pause before pointing at me, grinning. “You were a lawyer.”

I almost died on the spot. A fucking _lawyer_? My God. Could you imagine? I mean, the assassin as a lawyer thing was hard enough – but a _faerie _as a lawyer? I could neither lie nor break a vow. It’d be a damn nightmare.

Beside me, Daryl let out a snorted chuckle whilst Michonne muffled her own with the back of her gloved hand.

Zach’s grin slowly deflated. “I take it I’m wrong.”

I nodded.

“Okay, okay.” He slapped his hands together and began to rub them, looking between all of us with a thoughtful grin. “Well, seeing as you look the way you do – were you a model?”

My singular blink of surprise was the only sign that the guess had caught me off guard.

Both Daryl and Michonne stopped laughing as they looked over to me with near matching inquisitive looks. Mason shuffled from foot to foot as he looked at the ground by my feet, waiting to hear my response.

A small laugh escaped me. “I appreciate the sentiment, kid, but I am almost literally covered in tattoos – some of which are of trademarked material. No modelling agency is touching that potential-lawsuit with a ten-foot pole.”

Zach’s smile faded once again. “Oh. Didn’t think of that.”

“Aren’t there tattoo models?” Michonne asked, which made the kid’s face light up again.

I raised a finger. “I was not one of those, either.”

Another long stretch of contemplative silence, filled only by the sounds of distant walkers.

“Can I ask for a clue?”

I waved a hand, signalling for him to go ahead.

“Were you… Was what you did, Before, considered… legal?”

I felt the skin over my face tighten slightly before I managed to plaster on a small smirk. “Depends on who you worked for.”

Technically, that wasn’t a lie. What would be a lie is if I said that I was perfectly comfortable with where this line of questioning had gone.

Zach clapped his hands together and looked down at me with an excited, wide-eyed grin. I watched him open his mouth almost as if it were in slow motion, feeling my muscles tighten ever-so-slightly in unease. My mind raced a mile a minute, already thinking up clever quips and non-lies to get me out of the potential fuckery he may well be about to put me in.

“You’re a badass,” he began slowly. “You _kick_ ass. And you ain’t afraid to break the rules when you need to.”

I cocked a brow. Everyone almost simultaneously leant forwards in anticipation.

“You were… a _bounty hunter_.”

Something loud smashed against the glass behind my left shoulder, making the others jump. A gargled growl came from the inside of the store and I turned to see a walker pressed up against the window, its dead eyes looking between all of us hungrily. Thankfully, I’d had a millisecond to prepare myself, having heard its uneven footfalls mere seconds before it’d thrown itself at the glass.

“Well, then. That’s our queue, is it not?” I asked, careful not to allow the shake in my voice to become noticeable. That had been much too close of a guess for comfort.

Reaching down to collect my silenced rifle, I slowly rose to my feet and secured it over my shoulder. Daryl stood beside me, pulling his crossbow from behind his back and nodding toward the entryway of the storefront.

“Whoa, wait,” Mason said, scrambling to check his handgun was loaded as he began to follow the rest of us to the doors. “Was he right?”

I turned partially, tapping the hand not currently holding a knife against the side of his chest with a smirk. “Tell you what, kiddo. You make it through today and I’ll tell you.”

He gave me a nervous smile.

Daryl snorted something under his breath, quiet enough for even me to miss, before gesturing at Sasha and Tyreese to push open the doors.

And, together, we slid into the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a damn close one, hey? Hope you liked the chapter! As usual, please don't hesitate to leave a comment (or two) below. It really does give me my daily boost and makes me feel like writing more and more and more :D
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,   
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	27. The Indifference of Numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Within the store, things go rapidly awry when Synnove hears the sounds of an unsteady roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, my lovelies! I've had one hell of a week at work and haven't had a chance to polish this one off until now! Still, I really hope you enjoy it! :D

The stagnate air within the store was almost enough to choke me, the stench of rotten food and flesh hanging throughout the aisles like an almost perceivable fog. The ground beneath out feet was coated in a fine sheen of dust, barely disturbed bar for the shuffled footsteps of the dead.

Our group split up, each given a specific job. Bob and Zach were to find anything we could use as medical equipment, whilst Sasha, Michonne, and Tyreese went in search of perishables.

Mason, Daryl, and I were halfway down the hygiene section, pulling a handful of toothbrushes off the shelf, when I noticed the sign. The sounds of a walker shuffling its way into our aisle was what brought my attention to that area of the store.

The faded red vest and name tag that dubbed him “Steve” indicated that this wandering corpse was likely once a worker here. I pulled my dagger from the sheath on my hip and slowly approached it, grinning to myself as I quietly remarked, “Clean up on aisle four.”

The blade pierced through his head easily, as if he had been dead quite some time and the bone density of his skull had horribly deteriorated. It was as I was watching him fall to the tiled floor, yanking my blade free, that I saw the dusty sign hanging from the ceiling a few aisles over.

Without warning either of the boys behind me, I began to make my way towards it.

Daryl noticed almost immediately, quietly jogging down the aisle and coming to a stop by my side. He grabbed my upper arm and gave me a curious look.

I gestured towards the “pharmacy” sign. “Drugs.”

His eyebrow lifted quite impressively high as he gazed evenly back at me and shook his head.

I gave him an over dramatic pouted frown. “Merle would’ve let me.”

Daryl’s expression immediately shifted to one of both restrained bemusement and exasperation. “You gotta stop using that.”

I chuckled quietly as he let his hand slowly fall from my arm. Unsurprisingly, Daryl fell into cautious step beside me as I began to make my way down the strip of aisle entrances towards the Pharmacy section of the store.

Also unsurprisingly, Mason appeared behind us before we reached the area, quite loudly asking, “What’re we doing?”

Both Daryl and I turned, our fingers to our lips to signal his silence.

“_Oh, sorry_,” he whispered. “_What are we doing_?”

I pointed up to the rather large sign a few metres in front of us, dangling from the ceiling.

Mason’s mouth opening into an “O” shape as understanding seemed to dawn. “_Right_.”

If I were going to keep good on what I’d told Rick, this would be where I needed to go. There were a number of pain killers and other types of medication that would work alongside grapefruit juice to illicit a fatal effect.

I could hear the distinct sound of creaking, dead bones echoing through the stale air from the other side of the pharmacy counter. After putting my finger to my lips and indicating to the two men behind me to be quiet, I silently climbed atop the counter and peered over. A walker was crawling on its hands, dragging its partially dismembered torso along the tiled ground. Its back was covered by a torn, white coat, indicating he had once been the resident pharmacist. Ironic he should spend the majority of his afterlife behind the same desk he’d likely wasted away behind in life.

I put the damn thing out of its misery with one silent strike of my knife.

Climbing over his now dead-dead form, I began to tip-toe through the lines of tall, white shelving, reading convoluted label after convoluted label until I found what I was looking for.

One of the things I’d weirdly found amusing since moving here was that all prescription pills in America seemed to come in this clunky, plastic container, with a bland label slapped on the outside. It seemed rather like testing fate to me. Wouldn’t they be frightfully easy to mix up on first glance? Human sight wasn’t exactly the most reliable of things, after all, was it?

Not that… any of that really mattered nowadays, of course.

It was as I was climbing back over the counter that I first heard it.

At first, I thought it was the sound of the counter groaning beneath my weight as I slid across it, but it had too much of an echo to be coming from somewhere low to the ground. No. It was coming from above.

The sound was partway between groaning metal and cracking plaster.

I approached Daryl and Mason, who had been keeping watch whilst I rummaged about in the pharmacy, and frowned. “Something’s wrong,” I whispered.

Daryl nodded, his demeanour immediately shifting into Protective Alpha Male Mode. He never questioned my instincts, or even thought to wonder why they were always so weirdly accurate. Mason, on the other hand, gave me a confused look.

“Like how?” he asked in a whispered voice.

I cocked a brow at him. “Like, in a not right way.”

He just gave me another funny look that I pretended not to notice as I slipped past him and Daryl and began to make my way further into the store. My ears were peaked as I tried to listen intently to the sounds the building was making. I could still hear that distant growl of walkers beneath the creaking groans of the ceiling tiles.

Were they… coming from above us?

“We need to move,” I stated, turning back to look at Daryl. “Get everyone out.”

He nodded, turning down a nearby aisle towards the sounds of Michonne’s voice. I began to make my way towards Tyreese and Sasha, Mason on my tail, when a loud crash broke through the stilted silence of the store.

Further down, near the other end of the building, pieces of roof tile and metal crashed downwards, knocking over a series of shelves near the alcohol section.

I heard a cry of pain and surprise and kicked into a run.

“Help!”

Walkers began to rain down from the ceiling, crashing to the tiled floor around the fallen shelves, barely an inch away from where Bob was trapped. His upper body was poking out from beneath the fallen wine shelf, eyes wide in fear as he struggled to free himself from the weight above him.

The sounds of gunfire began to echo through the room as Zach began to clear the walkers surrounding the trapped man before him.

Mason, seemingly without thinking, charged forwards. He bent down to begin lifting the shelf as I freed my knives from their sheaths and went to work, keeping the walkers at bay whilst they freed Bob.

Daryl joined my side, crushing the skull of a newly fallen walker beneath his booted foot and readying his own blade.

“The roofs coming down!” I yelled, nodding upwards.

The entire store was likely to fall in on itself. I could hear the unsteady structure shaking and groaning, coming more and more undone the longer we stood there.

“Go, go!” I heard Zach yell from behind me. He drew his gun and began firing at the walkers that had begun to find their footing after their tumble from above.

I looked back towards them, glad to see Bob slowly sliding his way free from beneath the shelf, being held by both Mason and Zach. Once he was clear, the boys dropped it and began to make their way towards Daryl and I, who were clearing a path towards the exit alongside Tyreese and Sasha.

Michonne appeared at the other end of the aisle, clearing some of the raining walkers from behind. It was almost absurd how many there were.

A yell came from behind me.

I spun out of sheer instinct, my heart in my throat as I watched Mason, face down on the floor, being dragged backwards by a walker. A small streak of blood leaked from his pale forehead, as if he had struck the flooring with the weight of his entire body behind him.

A few feet away, Zach was pulled backwards, seemingly about to meet the same fate as Mason.

I dashed forwards, ducking beneath another dead man as I dropped down onto the tile floor, sliding past Mason’s fallen form and coming to a stop beside the walker currently trying to take a chunk out of his leg. Driving my knife downwards, I ceased the thing’s movements, easily climbing to my feet and turning in place to make a move to save Zach.

The ceiling above me began to crack, pieces of ceiling tile falling down around me like an apocalyptic rain. It was going to give out. There was no time to debate.

I could save Mason, or I could save Zach. The others were too far away to make a difference now, too distracted by the plethora of walkers crashing down from above them.

My body made the choice before my brain did.

Without thought, I bent down and grabbed the back of Mason’s shirt, lifting him up and dragging him further down the aisle, the tips of his sneakers screeching against the tiled floor.

I barely managed to get him far enough down the aisle of debris before what I looked like a fucking _helicopter blade_ pierced through the roof above where we had been standing, thankfully blocking off the sight of Zach, lying on the ground, screaming as walkers tore into his flesh.

#

The walkers spilled out into the carpark, their collective growls echoing through the once-silent air. I was all but dragging Mason behind me with an iron grip on his forearm, not even hesitating to give him a warning when I practically tossed him into the tray of the truck. Sasha bolted past me, pulling the keys from her pocket as she yanked the driver’s side door open and slid inside. Tyreese wasn’t far behind, slipping into the passenger side with a grunt.

Daryl jumped onto his bike, kicking it to a start. I met his gaze once I had climbed up into the tray, my heart leaping into my throat once I noticed how close the newly formed horde had grown to his back.

I slapped the roof of the truck impatiently. “Fucking go!”

Sasha turned the key and started the ignition, jerking the truck into gear and speeding out of the carpark so suddenly, I almost lost my balance. Thankfully, I was able to stay put by lowering myself down onto my knees as I watched Daryl’s bike peeling through the hole in the fence behind us. The second car wasn’t far behind him, with Michonne behind the wheel and a very pale Glenn sitting beside her.

Mason lay on his back, staring up at the sky as we sped away from the corner store, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His eyes were wide, his mouth opening and closing, as if he were struggling to find the words he needed to appropriately convey the over-all sense of “what the fuck” he was likely feeling at that moment.

“Breathe, kiddo,” I advised, giving him a gentle look as I touched his shoulder. “Just breathe.”

“He – they – it was – that was my fault,” Mason stuttered out breathlessly.

I felt something cold settle in the base of my chest, a painful sensation that flared with each beat of my heart. “No,” I breathed. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He lifted up his hands to cover his blood-spattered face, sniffling. “It was. It was my fault.”

I could hear the sheer despair in his voice and felt my throat close up slightly in sympathy. The truck bounced against the uneven road, almost causing Mason to strike the back of his head against the metal base of the tray. I slid closer to him, reaching out and lifting him partially by the shoulders, pulling his upper half onto my lap.

“Hey now, kid,” I said softly. “You have no blame in this.”

Mason sniffled, still clutching his face as he shook his head in disagreement. “You could’ve saved him,” he said in an uneven voice. “You could’ve saved him if I hadn’t been there.”

Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a silent sigh, I moved my hands and gripped his wrists, prying them slowly away from his face. His eyes were squeezed shut with small droplets of tears clinging to his lashes. “Hey. Look at me. Come on, kiddo.”

Mason slowly allowed his reddened eyes to open, looking up at me through lids narrowed against the bright sky past my head, his face contorting into a miserable grimace.

“It was not your fault,” I stated sternly. “I would tell you if it was.”

“If I hadn’t – “

“That doesn’t matter,” I snapped, cocking a brow down at him. “Zach didn’t have to be there, either, but he was. I had to choose between the two of you and I picked you, kiddo. That is not your fault. If anything, it’s mine, but the reality of the situation is that no one could have predicted that clusterfuck. Sometimes, kiddo, shit just happens that no one is to blame for.”

As callous as it sounded, it seemed to be just what Mason needed to hear in that moment. He sniffled back the last of his tears, took a deep breath, and slowly rose up into a sitting position. The constant jolting of the truck made our proximity somewhat awkward all of a sudden, as with every bump, our heads almost collided. Satisfied that the kid’s mental breakdown had passed, I slid backwards, resting my back against the canopy.

Mason mimicked my movements, sliding across to sit next to me.

I could see Daryl shake his head as he rode along behind the truck but elected to ignore it.

#

As much bravado as I’d shown Mason, the reality was that Zach’s death had hit me somewhat harder than I was willing to admit. I’d made a split second decision, using nothing more than my own personal bias, and it had resulted in his gruesome death. Now, I had to look poor Beth in the eye and tell her that it was my fault her boyfriend had been eaten alive.

Mason almost puked at the idea of facing her, so I sent him packing, back to our shared cell to get some rest.

Despite my air of indifference, Daryl seemed to sense something was wrong – as he so often did. Once Mason had retreated back to the cellblock, Daryl took his place by my side and grabbed onto my forearm, turning me gently to face him.

“Syn. It weren’t your fault,” he said softly.

I scoffed and pulled away. “Oh, don’t you start that.”

He immediately snatched my arm again, this time holding it in a stronger grip. “Don’t think I don’t know ya blamin’ yourself.”

Somewhere deep down, I felt the wall around my emotions begin to soften, the way it only did when it was his damn eyes I was gazing into. After taking a deep breath, I let out an irritated sigh and gave him a half-hearted shrug. “And?”

Daryl cocked a brow. “And, I’m tellin’ ya it ain’t your fault.”

“I let him die, Daryl.” Even with the warmth of his hand on my arm couldn’t keep the coldness seeping into my body at bay. “It wasn’t an accident. It was an active choice.”

“And both of ‘em would’a died if ya hadn’t made it,” Daryl pointed out.

I remained silent, looking back at him with a pursed frown. How dare he came at me with logical reasoning? That was my thing.

“Come on. I’ll come with ya.”

I hadn’t told him my intentions yet, so the fact he already knew what I planned to do threw me a little off kilter. A small, quick intake of breath and the slightest of head tilts were the only outward signs that he’d caught me off guard. “Sure.”

There was no way I was going to openly admit that his presence would likely be the only thing keeping me from spiralling into a guilt-fuelled meltdown when I faced Beth.

We began to make our way toward the cellblock, Daryl walking behind me, close enough that I could feel his warmth. The walk felt as if it took twice as long as it normally would, my feet weighed down by the trepidation slowly creeping through my veins.

God. Would she hate me? Would it crush her, send her into another spiral of depression, like Maggie told me she had been after the death of their mother? Jesus. What had I done?

Daryl placed a hand gently against the small of my back as I reached out to pull open the cellblock door. The sensation of his palm against my spine relaxed my muscles enough to enable me a much-needed deep breath.

The cellblock was quiet upon our arrival, with only a handful of people mingling by the metal tables in the centre of the room. We passed by them with nods of acknowledgement in their direction, heading straight to the corridor. Beth’s cell was the first, covered by a thin yellow sheet that was almost always pinned to the side.

She was lying on the bunk on her stomach, head towards the doorway, writing in what looked like a diary.

I felt my heart rise into my throat. Daryl stepped closer. I could breathe.

“Hey,” I greeted from the open doorway.

Beth glanced up from her book. “Hey.”

She saw the look on both our faces, small lines appearing on her face in place of a frown.

“What is it?”

Daryl and I shared a glance.

“Zach?” Beth asked, almost nonchalantly.

Neither of us answered. I pushed off the edge of the doorframe and took half a step into her cell, schooling my expression into blankness. “Beth –“

“He dead?” she asked. Again, her air seemed to be almost conversational, as if only just curious of the answer and not concerned.

I gave her a solemn nod to which she responded in kind, turning away from us and towards the “X Days Without Accident” sign she had sitting on the long dresser propped up against the right wall of her room. Without a word, she got up from the bunk, walked across her cell, and changed it from “30” to “0”.

I felt something deep inside my chest begin to crack.

“What?” she asked, once she saw the odd looks both Daryl and I were giving her. “I don’t cry anymore, guys.”

“That seems concerning,” I remarked, almost under my breath.

“Coming from you,” Beth shot back, not exactly pointedly. Her tone was more matter-of-fact than anything else. And, honestly? It was a fair remark. I did try to hide or suppress my emotions more times than not. My entire life, I’d been raised with the notion drilled into my mind that feelings just got in the way. Emotions were not considered a weakness, per se, but they _were_ considered a risk. One best to avoid.

“I’m just glad I got to know him, you know?” Beth added after a moment, her lips thinning into a line as she shrugged a delicate shoulder.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Me too,” Daryl added with a tight nod.

None of us talked for a long moment. The air hung heavy with an odd kind of sorrow; a sorrow clouded by a fog of forced indifference. My eyes were locked on the sign resting atop her dresser. Such a morbid little thing to have.

“You two okay?” Beth asked.

Daryl, who had remained by the door of the cell, let out a small sigh. I turned towards him and took a slight step back, until my shoulder brushed his. His gaze remained on Beth as he said, his gruff voice barely louder than a whisper, “Just tired of losing people, is all.”

A soft breath escaped me as I nodded my agreement. My entire life had been almost nothing more than a succession of losing people. You don’t get used to it, no matter what movies and TV shows try to sell you. It always hits hard. It just gets easier to pretend otherwise.

Beth didn’t reply. Instead, she crossed the space between us and wrapped her thin arms around both Daryl and I, her head resting against where our shoulders pressed together. I lifted my other arm and gently pressed it against the small of her back. Daryl, after hesitating for a moment, did the same.

His hand rested atop mine.

“I’m glad I didn’t say goodbye,” Beth breathed.

Daryl and I shared a side-long glance. I hadn’t realised how close we were in that moment and I felt my heart near skip a beat.

Would I be able to keep as calm as Beth was in this moment, had I been in her place and Daryl, Zach’s? I barely even needed half a second to consider before the answer was made perfectly apparent.

No. No, I would not. For all my training and all the losses I’d taken on the chin… This man beside me had the potential to be my goddamn ruin.

And something about that realisation scared me more than I would ever admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeey! Hope you enjoyed! Please, as per usual, feel free to leave a comment! They fuel my rabid need for acknowledgement. 
> 
> I do promise to keep my updates a little more on the regular, once work settles down. :)
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress xx


	28. An Infectious Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having suddenly realised her attachment to a certain crossbow wielding brother of an old friend has become stronger than she'd ever intended, Syn becomes somewhat reclusive.

A relatively quiet few days passed.

Daryl and I returned to our usual routine. During the nights, we would take our place in the western watch tower and spent the days either hunting or helping out in random places around the prison. I was unusually closed off from him during those hours we spent together, and he noticed almost immediately. Whilst we sat on our shitty lawn chairs atop the watch tower, the glow of the half moon illuminating the troubled lines on his face, he asked me what was wrong.

I did my best to pass it off as my concern for Mason, as the kid had become withdrawn and quiet since returning from the store, but I knew Daryl could see right through my attempts to dismiss my own sudden introversion. Well, not introversion, per se. As he said, I’d been perfectly myself around everyone else. It was only around him that I was… different. Stiffer, less talkative.

I hadn’t meant to be, of course. Being around Daryl was usually the only thing that made me feel… I don’t know, safe? Relaxed? But that was part of the problem.

How had I only just realized how much he had come to mean to me? It was as if my brain had just pretended not to notice until my idiotic ass made the shitty decision to ask that damn question of myself.

_Would I be able to keep my head if something happened to him?_

It wasn’t as if I could come out and say I was struggling to figure out how to talk to him with that damn thought bouncing around in my skull, very irritatingly pointing out the warm feeling that spread inside my chest every time I looked at him.

Honestly, I had been enjoying living in a state of perpetual ignorance. I didn’t need to _know _that I’d grown irresponsibly close to the man sitting next to me. I’d been perfectly comfortable in the forgiving realm of active denial. There had been absolutely _no reason_ for me to step outside those protective walls.

Try as I might, however, I couldn’t seem to wedge myself back in. Every moment spent with him was like actively reminding myself of my realisation that night outside of Beth’s cell. Lately, it was like his proximity was the metaphorical equivalent of someone screaming “YOU LIKE HIM” right into my damn ear, to which I would respond with a metaphorical “SHUT THE FUCK UP” by not-so-subtly scooting slightly away from him.

Anyway, the point is… he noticed.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to put two-and-two together. Instead, he allowed the air between us to grow tense and stilted, and once our watch for that night ended at first light, he marched down to the cell block and disappeared into his cell without a word.

Okay. Admittedly, that kind of hurt.

I quickly busied myself in an attempt to avoid thinking on it, entering my own cell and chipperly greeting the forlorn Mason, who was lying on his side on his bunk, sulking into the shadows.

Forgoing my false cheer, I gave a concerned frown and sunk down onto the edge of his mattress. “Hey. Come on, kiddo.”

He made a grunt in response.

“I know you’re feeling like shit,” I said softly. “But you can’t just stop, man. You gotta keep moving.”

Again, he remained silent. His back was to me, the lines of his spine detailed through the thin material of his faded yellow t-shirt. He’d put on some weight since we’d found him, after a rather long stint of me practically shoving food into his mouth like some kind of concerned grandmother. The hollows of his cheeks had filled out, the darkness beneath his eyes clearing. You could no longer see his ribs. But he was still skinny.

I gently reached out and touched his bony shoulder, leaning over his body slightly to peer at the side of his face. “Wanna know something?”

He moved his head slightly, light brown irises pressed into the corner of his eye as he looked up at me.

“I’ve seen a lot of death, kid,” I whispered to him. “A lot more than I’m willing to admit. And, a lot of that death was my own fault – one way or another. So – and I’m not saying that you were at all to blame for what happened the other day, but – I know how you’re feeling right now.”

Mason didn’t respond for a long moment, breathing steadily as he stared with partially narrowed eyes at the wall our bunk was pressed against. Then, suddenly, he took in a deep breath and turned around onto his back, looking up at me with those brown, doe-eyes of his. “You weren’t a bounty hunter, were you?”

His voice was hoarse and almost child-like in its soft curiosity.

I had expected the question to make my heart freeze, but for some reason, it only sent a sharp ache throughout my chest. “No,” I answered plainly. “No, I wasn’t.”

Mason nodded slowly, closing his eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

I clenched my teeth together, sighing through my nose. Unable to hold his wide gaze, I looked towards the other side of our cell as I shook my head. “No, kid. I’m not.”

For some odd reason, the words almost seemed to burn in my throat. I wanted to lie to him, to tell him that, one day, I’d tell him the truth of my history. But the reality was that… I wouldn’t. As long as I could help it, I would keep that part of me hidden. From everyone. Even Daryl. _Especially_ Daryl.

_Goddamn it. Stop thinking about him, you idiot._

“Look, I’ll tell you what,” I began, tightening my grip on his shoulder slightly as he made a move to turn back over. “How about I tell you a secret that no one else here knows?”

That caught his attention. “Not even Daryl?” he asked.

I felt my expression go completely blank as I closed my eyes for a long moment, opening them again to see Mason’s wide gaze staring eagerly back at me. “No,” I responded, teeth clenched. “Not even Daryl.”

Was I just synonymous with that man now?

Mason slowly turned around fully, moving into a sitting position and crossing his legs whilst he looked expectantly at me.

I waited a few seconds to draw out his suspense before I leant in, stifling a sudden grin, as I said, “I am… terrified of clowns.”

For a moment, he just stared at me, until suddenly, the kid burst out into laughter. “_Bullshit_,” he breathed between bouts of giggles, shaking his head in disbelief. “There’s no goddamn way _you_ are scared of _anything_, let alone fucking _clowns_.”

“I am also deeply unnerved by the open ocean,” I stated matter-of-factly.

He sobered slightly, pointing at me with a nod. “That’s just common sense.”

“And black holes.”

Mason nodded again. “Scary space shit. Understandable.”

“Not a big fan of big, flying insects, either.”

That made him laugh again. “_Bugs_? Really?”

“_Big_ bugs,” I corrected, lifting a pointed finger. “And only the kind that have wings that _should not_ have wings.”

“You mean those big flying cockroach things, right?” Mason asked, cocking a brow as he grinned bemusedly at me.

I nodded. “Those fuckers are _not supposed _to fly. They are little, _ground-bound_, dirty things that hide under couches and do nothing for society. Of all the insects that deserve to evolve the ability to fly, they are some of the lowest on the list.”

Mason, between laughter, ask, “Oh, you have a list, do you?”

I snorted. “I am very opinionated on a wide variety of subjects. Example; cockroaches do not deserve to fly, but those little rolly-polly beetle-things do.”

“What? Pillbugs?” he asked, scrunching his face slightly in an expression of mock-disgust that was somewhat at war with the snorted chuckles he kept trying to suppress.

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “Harmless and even kinda cute. That is what I like in a bug.”

Suddenly, as Mason opened his mouth to continue our odd conversation, effectively distracted from his own misery for a few moments, something else caught my attention. It was as if the sound of his voice was drowned out by a softer sound, a noise far off in the distance that was likely too quiet for him to hear. I wasn’t entirely sure if I even actually actively heard it, or if it was more an instinctual reaction to a sound I subconsciously caught onto. Whichever it was, the fact remained that I had _definitely _just caught what sounded like a scream off in the distance.

It was early in the morning, too early for the kids to be playing about outside, and though the sound was distant, it wasn’t… distant enough. Wherever it had come from was somewhere _within_ the walls of the prison.

I could almost feel it. The distress. The fear.

My head twitched to the side, towards the sound, my face contorting into a confused frown. Mason noticed, cutting off whatever he was saying as he reached out to ask if I was okay.

“Something’s wrong,” I remarked as I slid out from the bottom bunk.

Once again, he asked what I meant, but I ignored him.

Without nary a word, I made my way out of our cell and up the staircase to the mezzanine above. I came to a stop outside the first cell against the front wall of the room.

Daryl was sitting lazily on his bed, leaning back against the concrete walls of the corner, staring down at the roughly sharpened tip of an arrow he held loosely in his hands.

When the light from the window behind me was blocked out by my form, he glanced up. I could see the way his shoulders tensed when he saw it was me.

“What?” he grunted.

Ouch.

“Something’s wrong,” I told him simply.

His brows furrowed as he lowered his arrow, giving me a more serious look. “Where?”

I shook my head, opening my mouth to explain that I wasn’t entirely sure, when the loud, yet somewhat muffled sound of a gunshot rang through the air.

#

We ran.

The moment we exited the cell block, Rick was running towards us, throwing his farming gloves to the ground and brandishing a small pocketknife.

Michonne and Glenn met up with us as we made our way across the courtyard towards the sounds of screaming.

“Walkers in D!” Daryl yelled, waving Rick towards the aforementioned cell block.

“What about C?” Rick yelled back in concern.

Fast as I was, I had already made it to the gate that separated out two cell blocks but turned around at the sound of his question to reassure him. “It’s clear! Doors to the tombs are locked and Hershel’s on guard!” 

“It ain’t a breach!” Daryl stated confidently as Sasha and Tyreese joined us, coming from the other side of the prison gate, likely from patrol.

Without another word, I continued on, pulling open the back door of the cell block and dashing inside.

It was chaos.

I barely had time to damn blink before I was forced to make a move, drawing a knife and tossing it expertly forwards. It buried itself into Kyle’s dead skull, mere seconds before his teeth could sink into his wife’s throat.

I leapt forwards, pulling the knife free before Kyle’s body could hit the floor, trying my hardest not to think any further than my fighter’s instincts. These were people I’d known for months, people I had fought both against and with many times before. But if I wanted to protect those of them that had yet to fall prey to the undead, I couldn’t let that affect me. Not yet, at least.

Without hesitation, I snatched Kyle’s wife’s arm and practically whipped her sideways, into the open cell a few paces to my right. She stumbled in and I followed behind, ensuring it was clear before I shut the door in her face.

My next movements were somewhat sporadic as I leapt from place to place, dispatching dead friends before they could wreak any more havoc on the currently living ones. From the cell door where I’d unceremoniously shoved Kyle’s wife, I spun on the spot, slicing upwards and through the skull of another walker, about to take a chunk out of my leg.

From there, I hopped over her undead body, reaching out with my free hand and yanking little Tayra away from Silvia’s gnashing jaws, pushing myself partially beneath her undead form in order to put something between her and little Ava, who was sobbing uncontrollably on the floor behind me.

Their caretaker’s teeth clicked together no more than half an inch from my face, her hands coming up to grip at my bare shoulders. Before she had a chance to dig those gross nails of hers into my flesh, I brought my knife up and caught her beneath the chin.

I kind of shimmied her body off me, to the side and away from Ava’s curled form beneath me.

“Come on, girls!” I called as I reached out to pull Ava to her feet. Tayra, who had pressed herself up against the wall opposite the cells, was staring wide-eyed at the chaos around her, hands pulled up to her chest.

Hoisting Ava up onto my hip with one hand, I sheathed my knife and grabbed her sister by the arm, pulling her across the hall towards the safety of one of the cells. Dimitri’s dead face blocked my view for a fraction of a second before I stumbled back a step, Ava’s weight throwing me slightly off balance. Instinctively, I threw out a leg and kicked him back, sending him crashing against the wall violently. Not violently enough, however. As I tried to pass by his fallen form, all but throwing Tayra forwards, the undead prick grabbed hold of my ankle.

From the other side of me, another member of the Undead Club appeared. I twisted my torso around as much as I could with one leg currently held in a vice in order to protect Ava from the walker’s reaching hands. It came stumbling towards me, opening its mouth to take a bite.

I lifted my leg, trying to put my knee between it and me, keeping my body twisted so Ava was safe. Dimitri’s hand pulled and pulled at my leg, trying to drag himself closer to my ankle.

I was, officially, in a bit of a pickle.

At least, until the roughly sharpened point of an arrow appeared in front of my face.

It had pierced through the skull of the walker I was holding back with my knee, coming to a stop mere inches from my own head. The walker slumped down to the ground, enabling me space to twist around with my raised leg and slam my boot into Dimitri’s undead face.

Daryl and Rick’s voices yelled out, accompanied by a panicked Tyreese, who was calling out for Karen. I paused in the doorway of the cell for barely a second, just to catch a glimpse of her, to ensure she was okay before I slid inside.

Placing Ava down beside her sister, who had fallen onto her ass with the force of my throw, I placed a soft kiss to the top of her head before stepping backwards, reaching behind me to grab the cell door. Tayra began to shuffle forwards, as if she planned to climb onto her feet and follow me. I placed a finger to my lips, shaking my head before stepping back out into the corridor and closing the door.

“Syn!”

Daryl.

I spun on the spot, knives back in my hands, something cold spreading through me as I searched for him. A slight exhale of relief escaped me when I saw him at the base of the staircase. He brought his knife down into the skull of a walker before catching my eye, jerking his head towards the steps.

I followed behind him, up to the second floor of the cell block. The second he stepped foot up there, a walker was almost on top of him. I didn’t even think twice before throwing my knife, watching as it sailed over his shoulder and into the walker’s skull before it could sink its teeth into his neck.

Behind me, I heard a metallic slam and spun to see Rick, standing before one of the cells and staring down into it with a deep scowl.

“Damn,” Daryl breathed. “It’s Patrick.”

That caught my attention. Turning back, I looked down at the walker whose skull now housed my knife and felt my heart constrict in my throat. The young boy was lying, unmoving on the concrete mezzanine, his face coated in a thick sheen of crimson. His glasses were missing.

The sudden silence of the cellblock only made the whole sight that much more confronting.

With a lump in my throat, I stepped forwards, opening my mouth to say something when I suddenly caught a whiff of Patrick’s body.

I’ll be the first to admit that the apocalypse was not a pleasant place for those of us with heightened senses. The dead stank something horrible and don’t even get me started on all the unwashed bodies shoved into tight quarters. It was a smell you only _just_ got used to.

But this… This wasn’t the usual smell of the dead.

I brought my hand up, covering my mouth and nose with my forearm as my hand still clutched my only remaining blade. My face contorted into a disgusted grimace. “Jesus fuck, that stinks.”

It was rot and blood and something else, something I’d smelt before but couldn’t quite place.

Daryl gave me an odd look. “Don’t they always?”

I shook my head. “No, I mean… That’s _real_ bad.”

Rick came up behind me, looking over my shoulder, down at Patrick’s fallen form. His scowl had now turned into a troubled frown as he turned his head slightly to gaze at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it smells like…” I dropped my hand as the realization hit, a breath escaping me in shock. “It smells like Violet.”

Daryl blinked. “The pig?”

Rick understood my meaning almost instantly.

The pig. The dead pig. The pig I had killed before it could infect the other pigs with whatever it had that smelt like death and decay and… _disease_.

“Shit,” Rick breathed.

#

After inspecting a handful of the other walkers, it was determined that not all of them had died from a bite. We’d sent Tyreese to go fetch Hershel and Caleb, the old Woodbury doctor, and had made their way up to the second floor of the cellblock, surveying poor Charlie’s corpse. His undead form had been trapped within his own cell, having only just been dispatched by Rick though the bars a few moments prior.

“No bites, no wounds. I think he just died,” Hershel remarked, giving a troubled frown.

Daryl, Rick, and I stood behind the two medical men, looking down at Charlie’s corpse with matching expressions of troubled confusion. The smell was almost unbearable, but I remained where I was, trying my hardest to avoid breathing through my nose.

“Horribly, too,” Caleb added, pointing through the bars at Charlie’s slack expression. “Pleurisy aspiration.”

“He choked on his own blood?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.

Caleb turned to give me a nod. “Caused those trails down his face.”

“I’ve seen them on walkers outside the fences,” Rick remarked, his expression growing even more troubled.

“Saw ‘em on Patrick, too,” Daryl added.

Caleb pursed his lips, brows drawn down in a saddened frown. “They’re from the internal lung pressure building up.”

“Yeah, it’s like you’re a tube of toothpaste that God decided to squeeze and every hole in your face is the cap,” I described, somewhat unhelpfully.

Caleb, who I usually (in non-serious situations) referred to as “Doctor Submarine”, gave me a pointed look, but didn’t correct me. Mostly because I was right.

“It’s a sickness from the walkers?” Rick asked.

I shook my head before Hershel had even responded, somehow already knowing the answer.

“No. These things have happened long before they were around,” the old farmer said with a sigh.

“Could be pneumococcal,” Caleb guessed. “Most likely an aggressive flu strain.”

The smell grew as I took a partial step forward, intent on suggesting a quick quarantine protocol, but the stench of that illness – whatever it was – almost chocked me. I had to step back again, turning away from the cell and leaning against the metal railing that ran alongside the mezzanine.

Daryl turned alongside me, placing a hand on the small of my back. “You a’ight?”

“Someone must have locked him in just in time,” Rick was remarking behind me, no doubt still looking forlornly down at Charlie.

I swallowed back against a gagging sensation. “No.”

Daryl leant down further to get a better look at my expression.

“Charlie used to sleepwalk,” I completed, looking up at Daryl’s concerned gaze as I jerked my head back towards the closed cell behind us.

“Locked himself in,” Daryl clarified, speaking louder than my hushed comment. He let out a quiet sigh. “Hell, he was just eating barbecue yesterday. How could somebody die in a day just from a cold?”

I turned back around, my back pressing against the railing, and looked down at Charlie’s dead body on the floor of his cell. Something heavy settled in the pit of my stomach, a sickening sense of dread that began to turn my veins to ice.

“One of the pigs were sick,” Rick stated, glancing between Hershel and Caleb. “Syn dealt with it quick. But there was this boar in the woods that didn’t look good, either.”

Hershel nodded. “Pigs, birds. That’s how these things have spread in the past.” He tilted his head, white beard appearing almost ethereally pristine against the blood splattered wall of the cell, and looked at Rick. “We need to do something about those hogs.”

“Maybe we got lucky,” Rick sighed. “Maybe these two cases are it.”

Hershel let out a long sigh as he rose to his feet. “Haven’t seen anyone be lucky in a long time.”

Rick rose alongside him, glancing across to me with a tight frown.

I gave him a curt nod. “I can deal with it.”

The doctor stood next, looking between all of us with shadowed eyes. “Bugs like to run through close quarters,” Caleb stated. “Doesn’t get any closer than this.”

There was a slight pause as we all looked between one another before Hershel voiced what we were all thinking.

“All of us in here… we’ve all been exposed.”

“Well,” I breathed. “That’s fucking sucks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day! Hope you enjoyed that chapter! Apologies once again for being a little late, I"m struggling to fit writing in with work lately, but I'm going to figure it out soon - once everything calms down a little. I sincerely hope you are all doing okay and haven't been too harshly effected by the goingons these days.   
Please remember that, even in the worst of times, humanity can find a way to stick together and do what's right. Be kind to one another and remember that we are all members of one community. 
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read my chapter.  
and, of course,  
Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
Faerie Huntress xx


	29. A Grave Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the tragedy within cell block D, those within the council attempt to establish a quarantine.

There’s nothing quite like being an immortal, inhuman being during a potential pandemic. I held little fear for myself, quite confident in my assumption that the disease currently worming its way into the prison population wouldn’t affect me. There weren’t many human illnesses that could infect one of the fae. Usually, it required a halfling – a creature that was half human and half fae – to catch it, allowing the sickness to mutate with faerie blood. That was how I imagined the walker virus had grown to affect my kind.

Whatever this was hadn’t evolved that far – of that, I was almost certain.

Which made sitting at the table alongside the others, discussing the severity of the situation, somewhat difficult. And marginally awkward.

For me, anyway.

Carol sat beside me, staring almost blankly down at the circular table in the D-Block library. She looked more troubled than any of the others. Exhausted, almost. The insides of her hands were tainted a dark crimson, her mouth pulled into a tight line. It wouldn’t surprise me if her current mood had something to do with the distinct sounds of sobbing I’d heard from Lizzie and Mica’s cell earlier.

“Patrick was fine yesterday,” Carol spoke after a moment. “He died overnight.”

Hershel let out a troubled sigh. “We’ll have to separate everyone that’s been exposed.”

“So, everyone?” I asked, cocking a brow. _Except me_.

The old man gave me a solemn nod. “We know that this sickness can be lethal, but we don’t know how easily it spreads.” He looked between all of us, brows furrowed in thought. “Is anyone else showing symptoms that we know of??”

On my other side, I heard Daryl let out a low sigh. “We can’t just wait ‘round and see.”

“There’s kids in here,” I added in agreement, cringing slightly at the distant sound of a nasty cough filtering in down the corridor.

“It isn’t just the illness,” Carol put in, straightening from her slumped position on the wooden chair and leaning forward against the table. “People die, they become a threat.”

“We need a place for them to go.”

Sasha, who I hadn’t even known had followed us inside earlier, lifted a hand to gesture to the neighbouring building. “We can use cell block A.”

Glenn’s already troubled frown only grew deeper. “Death row? Not sure that’s much of an upgrade.”

“It’s clean,” Daryl remarked.

I pointed at him. “I’d call that a partial upgrade. At the least, it will be a community bonding experience.”

The group of them gave me a blank look, except for Glenn, who at least offered me a non-committal half-shrug in response.

“Think it’ll help Doctor S?” Carol asked after a short pause, looking back to Hershel.

The old man signed as he pushed himself up onto his feet – uh, _foot_. “I’ll help Caleb get it set up.”

That nasty coughing sound I’d heard earlier grew louder as the proximity between our room and the victim of the cough grew. It didn’t take long for the slight jerk of my head to be mimicked by the others. As soon as I was sure everyone could hear it, I stood from my chair and began to make my way towards the door, ensuring I kept myself at the front of the line.

I was the first to see them, making their way slowly down the hall. Tyreese held a sweaty and dishevelled Karen softly by the shoulders, leading her back towards the cell block at a docile pace. The look of her made my heart skip a beat and my feet freeze halfway through the threshold of the door. And the smell… that fucking smell.

Even from half a hall away, I could practically taste it. Sickly sweet and overwhelming, with the distinct tang of copper laced beneath.

My throat began to close up at the realisation as Karen let out another harsh cough, burying her face into her shoulder as she did.

“You okay?” Daryl asked as he softly pushed by me and stepped into the hall.

I resisted the urge to grab his hand and pull him away from her. No need to frighten everyone else by overreacting. He wasn’t stupid and I had no doubt he knew the likelihood that she had been infected by the same illness that had ripped through poor Patrick the night before.

Karen glanced up at him, giving a weak nod. Her gaze flicked across to me for a fraction of a second before turning back to the ground.

“You sure?” asked Glenn as he, too, gently moved passed my still-frozen form. “You don’t sound good.”

Tyreese held her a little tighter as he passed by us. “We’re just taking her back to my cell so she can rest.”

At this point, I’d finally taken a step forward and allowed the rest of our merry little gang out of the room. Sasha, who had filed out last, gave her brother a concerned frown as Hershel said a soft, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Both Tyreese and Karen stopped and turned to look back at us. Her eyes went straight to mine, whilst Tyreese looked to Hershel for answers. “Why? What’s going on?”

“There’s something in the cell block,” I answered, keeping my eye on Karen. Her brows furrowed into a troubled frown. “A flu, or something similar.”

“That’s how Patrick died,” Glenn put in.

“Judith was in that cell block,” Hershel said as he took a slight step towards Tyreese and Karen. “She’s vulnerable. Anyone that may be sick or even exposed should stay away.”

Still, Karen’s gaze remained on me, looking expectant, as if she expected me to console her of the sudden fear I could feel coating the room. What did she want me to do? Challenge bacteria to a duel? Yell clever obscenities at viral cells? I knew she and a handful of others that had hailed originally from Woodbury often expected something of me whenever times got a little rough. They always seemed to believe I’d save the day somehow. That had been the reality of things for a while, that was true. But I could hardly beat the flu in a fistfight.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Tyreese said after a tense moment of pause, during which he looked at each one of us as if he believed we’d try to physically remove her from him. “Now that we know what Patrick died from, we can treat it. Right?”

Hershel lifted a calming hand, sensing the same primal fear arising in the man as I did. “Don’t panic,” he soothed. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“Everyone should stay separated in the meantime,” I put in.

Karen let out a small breath and nodded, as if my advice was enough to satiate her concern for a while.

“Caleb will come have a look at you,” Hershel continued. “I’ll see what we have in the way of medication.”

“David from that Decatur group – he’s been coughing, too,” Karen suddenly said.

Glenn looked between us with a frown before nodding. “I’ll get him. There’s some empty, clean cells in the tombs, right?”

Daryl nodded in confirmation. “Yeah. We’ll meet you there.”

The rest of us organised to call another meeting later whilst we sorted out the mess in D-Block. I volunteered to bury the dead bodies, knowing the likelihood of infection was next to none when it came to me. Daryl, of course, immediately offered to help. I tried not to groan in frustration, knowing that refusing his assistance would likely only serve to push him further away.

Maybe my immunity would rub off on him if we stayed close.

Wishful thinking.

Carol remained standing in the hall long after everyone had left. Daryl and I had spent about half an hour fishing around for two pairs of gloves – which he had insisted I wear, along with his red cloth wrapped around the lower half of my face – but she was still lingering there by the time we returned.

The look on her face spoke of buried tension, the kind of fear that was wrapped tightly in a shroud of forced calm. Had I not known her as well as I had grown to, I wouldn’t be able to see the slight juts and corners of that fear poking out against the façade of her relaxed expression.

“What’s wrong?” Daryl asked as we approached, pulling the black bandanna he’d tied around the lower half of his face down so it danged loosely around his neck.

“Worried about Lizzie and Mica.”

I nodded, sharing her concern for two little girls of my own. Ava and Tayra were a good few years younger than Mica and it wasn’t often you’d see them all sharing the same area. They weren’t friends, likely due to their age difference, and had barely spoken a word to one another for the entire time I’d known them. Still, the four of them weren’t that different from one another. Young, weak, and scared. All traits that could very well get them killed in this new world.

“They were around Patrick,” Carol added after a moment, giving Daryl and I both a side-eye.

“We all were,” I remarked with a half-shrug. “Best we could do now is minimise as much exposure as possible.”

“Karen and David’ll be separated ‘till they’re better,” Daryl added, his voice slightly lilted, as if trying to force confidence. He was trying to hold onto a sense of optimism, but there were shadows of concern in the curl of his lip and corners of his eyes.

Both Carol and I could see straight through it, and she leant forward slightly to ask, “Are you okay?”

He took a moment, glancing between the two of us and seeing our near matching searching looks of worry. His eyes drifted downwards for a fraction of a second before he looked back up at Carol and nodded. “Mm-hmm. Gotta be.”

And he would be. I was going to see to that with everything in me.

Daryl turned away without another word and Carol’s eyes drifted to me. I could tell by the knowing glint in her eye that she could see my train of thought, almost as if reading it in a printed font written across my forehead. Her head bowed slightly in a nod, wordlessly expressing her plea for me to watch over him.

I nodded back.

#

Digging graves was no easy task.

The manual labour alone was murder on your back, but worse yet was the knowledge that you were digging pits in the ground to bury the dead bodies of people you once knew. It was morbid work. It was hard work. Even with my fae stamina, I could feel a light coat of sweat beginning to coat my skin, along with the dirt I was now knee-deep in.

Beside me, Daryl grunted as he shoved his shovel deeper into his own pit, tossing a pile of earth over his shoulder and into the ever-growing pile behind us.

“Slow down,” I breathed, pausing in my own dig and leaning against the handle of my shovel as I turned to face him.

He didn’t stop.

“Daryl. Slow down. We’re not in a rush.”

Again, he ignored me.

I let out a small sigh before resting my shovel up against the edge of my half-dug grave, leaping up and sliding across the small gap of land between us, landing smoothly in his freshly made pit. He looked up, somewhat shocked at my sudden appearance right in his face, but before he could make a move to shift away from me, I reached out and snatched his shovel from him.

“You’re going to burn yourself out,” I stated clearly, giving him a pointed look that wasn’t quite pointed enough to cover my concern. “Take a break.”

For a moment, he just stared back at me, eyes moving from side-to-side as he looked at both of my eyes in turn. Slowly, he pulled the bandanna from his face, still looking as if searching for something. But what?

“So, you care now?”

Daryl’s near silent question caught me off guard. His voice was rough in its hoarseness but somehow soft in its tone as he cast his eyes downwards, reminding me, almost, of a reprimanded child.

I blinked at him in quiet confusion for a few moments. “What?”

“Weren’t acting like you gave a shit before,” he said, his voice a little stronger this time, though he still wouldn’t meet my gaze. He kicked a small tuft of dirt by his feet.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I asked, though a second after the question had left my lips, the realisation hit me so hard the grave we were standing in almost became my own. I’d thought he’d been pissed at me because of how I’d been acting the past few days, but he wasn’t angry at all. A soft breath escaped me, and I took half a step towards him.

He retreated. Well, as far as one can retreat inside a two-by-eight-foot grave.

“Hey,” I whispered, almost as a reflex. “Daryl. Talk to me.”

“Like you talk to me?” he suddenly snapped, finally meeting my gaze. There was anger there. But there was something else, too. Something that made my heart constrict in my chest.

I’d really hurt him by suddenly shutting myself off, hadn’t I?

“I… I didn’t mean to.”

“What did I do?” he asked.

That question made me swallow back against a sudden sharp sensation in the base of my throat. No, he wasn’t angry, was he? He was… guilty. As if he thought he’d caused my sudden shift by doing something wrong.

“_Nothing_,” I breathed in response, somewhat stunned that I even had to say it. How had he concluded that he was somehow at fault, here? “God, Daryl. You didn’t do anything.” I reached out for him, almost out of pure instinct, and touched the damp skin of his upper arm. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Thankfully, he didn’t pull away. His gaze moved slowly back up to meet mine, one of his hands rising slightly, hesitating, before coming up to rest atop mine on his arm.

“I was just inside my own head, is all,” I admitted. It was basically the only thing I could say about it that wasn’t a lie. There was no way I would tell him I was only so deep inside my own head because I had suddenly realised he often made my stomach tighten when he looked at me a certain way. Or the fact that, even now, during this sombre and somewhat depressing scene, I can’t help but feel how hard the muscles of his arm are beneath my palm.

He nodded in understanding.

I almost snorted a laugh. Of course he understood. He did it, too, after all, didn’t he?

For a long moment, the two of us just stood, knee deep in dirt, my hand on his arm, his hand on mine, looking at one another. It seemed we were both searching for something to say.

Daryl opened his mouth. I felt my heart skip a beat at the thought of what he was about to say.

“Syn, I –“

“You two alright?”

Rick’s voice cut through the moment like a goddamn shotgun could cut through paper.

Daryl’s hand flew from mine as if I had caught on fire and I stepped back from him so fast, the backs of my knees hit the dirt wall at the edge of his grave and I sat down with a slight grunt.

In an attempt to avoid Rick noting whatever the hell he had just interrupted, I lifted my arms to stretch and remarked, as casually as I could, “Taking a break, Farmer Sheriff. Got a problem with that?”

Rick snorted as he came to a stop at the mouth of Daryl’s pit. “Yeah, I do. Get back to damn work.”

I smiled up at him, only for both of our grins to fade when we simultaneously remembered that “getting back to work” really meant “keep digging the graves for our dead friends”.

Without another word, I slid back over to my own hole in the ground, and kept digging.

“Glad you were in there,” Daryl said after a brief moment of walker-growl-filled silence.

“Wasn’t much use without my gun,” Rick responded, sliding his hands up to rest on his hips as he glanced to the ground, almost guiltily.

Daryl turned around to look at him. “No, you were.”

“Still got it, Ricky,” I added, shoving my shovel into the dirt with a grunt.

“Look,” Daryl continued as he turned back to continue digging. “All this time you’ve been taking off, you earned it. We wouldn’t be here without you.”

“It was all of us. You and Syn had no small part in it.”

“It was you first,” Daryl responded, his voice more confident than usual as he turned to look up at the man he would have followed into the mouth of death itself.

Silence responded, during which I could practically sense Rick shaking his head dejectedly. “I screwed up too many times. Those calls you gotta make… I start down that road…” A pause. “I almost lost my boy – who he was.”

At that, I leant my shovel back up against the edge of the grave and turned to look up at him. I could hear the fear and guilt and heartbreak in his voice as he spoke those words, and his expression only served to further solidify those emotions. My own heart squeezed in sympathy.

“Whatever else this place needs,” Rick continued, bending down to pick up the spare shovel lying on the grass by his feet. “I’m here for it.”

Daryl climbed up out of his grave to stand before his friend, looking him dead in the eye as he spoke. “Like I said, you earned it. But for what it’s worth – you see mistakes, I see when shit hits the fan, you’re the one standing there with a shovel.”

Rick seemed about ready to debate Daryl on that point when the sudden sound of Maggie’s panicked voice calling out our names interrupted his pessimistic train of thought.

I looked toward her, noting her frantic movements as she desperately pointed towards the boundary fence. My eyes slid across, a cold sensation spreading through my body when I saw what Maggie was so panicked about.

The boundary fences were lined with walkers, pressing up against the wire near six rows thick. They pressed against the wire with such pressure that the metal posts were beginning to bend and fold beneath their weight. It was going to collapse.

I was up and out of my grave within seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eerie that I end up at this stage in the story during these days, isn't it?  
I hope you're all safe and sound, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! As per usual, don't be shy! Comment away! I'm always elated to see a new notification in my inbox! :D
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx
> 
> Stay safe out there. And in here.


	30. The Grip of Disease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the fences collapsing, will Synnove be forced to use her inhuman strength to save the others? And what is that strange thing, hiding amongst the undead at their gates?

Maggie was yelling, Glenn appeared out of nowhere, and Daryl, Rick, and I practically manifested weapons into our hands with the sheer force of will.

Although, not literally, of course – as I feel the need to stipulate, given the likelihood that materialising weaponry out of thin air could very well be an actual thing, thanks to the realm of magical bullshitery that constantly surrounds me.

Taking the pointy ends of what I liked to call our “jabby-sticks”, we began to stab through the gaps in the fence, taking out as many of the overzealous undead as we could. They had begun to gather in one particular spot, so thick in numbers that the metal and wooden posts holding the fence up had begun to bend and concave. The six of us – as Tyreese had also appeared like a damn phantom in the wind – panting from the effort, continued our panicked onslaught, stabbing walker head after walker head as fast as we could. At one point, I stabbed so hard, I managed to impale three walkers in a morbid, undead shish-kabob. The give of that blow drew me closer to the fence, close enough that my cheek almost touched the bloodied metal wire – and close enough to get a nose-full of that damn smell. It was beneath the usual stench of rotting flesh, that hint of sickness, of disease not unlike the one I’d scented on the Violet not so long ago.

The walker an inch from my face growled deep in its torn throat, sounding almost as if it were trying to speak garbled words through the half-eaten rat carcass dangling from its once-pristine teeth. I felt my body spasm in disgust, pulling me backwards and away from the thing with a rather loud “_fucking gross_”. Almost in a disturbed trance, I watched the rat’s chewed torso slip from the walker’s teeth, falling to the trampled grass by its feet, adding to what looked like a mismatched pile of viscera and fur at the edge of the fence line. A long rats tail extended out from the twisted red, pink, and brown gore.

“Uh, guys?” I yelled, glancing back up from the pile in front of me to the crowd of walkers pushing up against the fence. With a jolt, I remembered what I was supposed to be doing, and lifted my jabby-stick to continue… well, jabbing.

“What?” Daryl asked from my other side as he stepped closer to the fence, using his bowie knife to dispatch a handful of walkers. The fence bent inwards so far that he had to duck in order to get close enough to get the blade through it and into their skulls.

“The rats!” I responded, gesturing down towards the floor by my feet with a wave of my less-dominant hand. The sweat that had begun to gather whilst I’d been digging graves had turned into actual droplets, running down the curve of my spine.

Tyreese noticed first, letting out a grunt of disbelief. “Is someone feeding these things?”

I didn’t get a chance to make a remark in response, as Rick let out a loud, “Heads up!” and pointed further down the fence, to where the walkers had congregated in thicker numbers.

“This part of the fence, now!” he ordered. “You three, stay there! Keep clearing!”

It was almost as if my body reacted before I had even consciously decided to obey him. Which, in hindsight, might have been a little troubling, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time.

The posts were bending inwards further and further as the walkers tried to mindlessly move forwards, their feet beginning to trample over the lower section of the wire. Rick got there first, gripping onto one of the metal posts and pushing upwards with all his might, trying to fight against the pressure of a dozen bodies with his own. Daryl joined him, grabbing the wooden post that had been propped up in the centre of this section of fence, adjusting his feet to push upwards from his legs.

I ran past him, my hands wrapping around the cold metal of the second post. Like Daryl, I planted my feet, feeling them dig into the dirt pathway as I began to push upwards against the undead.

“Hold on, hold on!” Rick yelled, his voice hoarse, straining in effort as he pushed with all his mortal might.

It was another one of those moments where I was faced with a choice. Use my strength, my true strength, to righten the fence post and push back against the walkers, or feign weakness, and allow the fence to collapse. But I couldn’t do that, could I? Not when the people I cared about were in danger. I had to continue to toe that line, to hope that their mortal minds would find some way of explaining the unexplainable, as they so often did.

So, with a deep breath, I dug my feet deeper into the hard gravel ground and pushed upwards. The metal post groaned in effort as it was forced to straighten, impelling the walkers to stumble backwards as the wire beneath their feet began to rise to an unstable angle.

My efforts propelled both Rick and Daryl, giving them enough slack to stabilise their own posts, and for a solid moment, it looked like we were actually going to do it. Until something in the herd of walkers caught my eye.

At first, I didn’t quite understand what it was I was seeing; a small hand, reaching up from behind one of the undead, talon-like fingernails slowly gripping at the torn flesh of its collarbone as it hoisted itself up. A second hand appeared on the other side of the walker’s face, those talon-like fingernails that I decided were actually claws catching in the thin membrane of its cheek. And then, the worst part.

A head, about the size and shape of a football, rose up from over the walker’s shoulder. Its was scaled, a dark green that glinted with yellow and white undertones in the sunlight, contrasting horribly against the white and crimson of its long, pointed teeth, two of which – its fangs – were _longer_ and _pointer_. The mouth practically split its face in half in a wide, reptilian smile. Eyes black as midnight took up the majority of the upper half of its head, large and oval-shaped, so dark they ate up the sunlight as they peered over the walker, through the gap of undead, and met my gaze. That reptilian smile somehow widened, non-existent lips pulling back to fully expose its fangs as they began to chatter in excitement. I could see the way its grip tightened on the walker’s shoulder by the blood that had begun to congeal around its claws through the undead man’s plaid shirt. 

The shock of seeing something so obviously not-from-around-here threw me so violently, my grip on the metal post slackened. It was enough for me to lose it, my feet sliding back as the metal slipped between my hands, striking me hard on the shoulder. The weight of it was enough to knock me to the ground.

Had Rick and Daryl not still been holding their posts, I would have been trampled completely. But without my strength behind them, they both began to teeter on the edge of crumbling beneath the weight of the fence before long.

I scrambled back up onto my feet. “It’s gonna give, let go! We’ll bottle-neck ‘em at the gate!”

Rick made the decision before Daryl – either that, or he lost his grip first. For the slightest of seconds, the full weight of the fence was held up by Daryl and Daryl alone. Until, of course, I latched onto his upper arm and pulled him out from underneath the wire mere moments before it collapsed on top of him. He stumbled along beside me for a moment before finding his balance again, righting himself into a run mid-step.

Maggie, Glenn and Tyreese were already ahead of us, pulling open the gate at the head of the pathway and yelling at us to hurry. Sasha stood at the opening, too, a metal spike in her hand.

“Come on!”

Rick reached them first, shortly followed by me, still dragging Daryl along despite the fact I was pretty sure he was keeping up this time. We slid through the open gate, Maggie and Glenn slamming it closed behind us.

“The inner fence won’t hold long like this,” Sasha remarked, a tremble to her voice.

I turned around to look, my eyes scanning the parade of undead marching down the dirt path, searching for a glint of green scales. There was nothing more than rotting flesh. Whatever I had seen – and I had a rather decent, terrifying idea as to _what_, exactly – had vanished. I didn’t doubt I’d be seeing it again.

“We gotta draw ‘em out,” Rick said between panted breaths, his crystalline eyes scanning the fields of the prison yard before us. I saw the moment the idea struck him in the way his shoulders squared and his jaw tightened. Following his line of sight, I found myself gazing out at the pig pen down the slight incline of the field.

“The piglets?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Rick nodded. “We drop ‘em in the field outside, use ‘em as bait.”

Sasha, of all people, seemingly cringed at the thought. “Isn’t that a little cruel?”

“As opposed to eating them?” I remarked with a slight smirk that quickly sobered. “Besides, they were too close to Violet. It’s likely they’d be carriers, at the least.”

We all glanced at one another, then back at the small horde of walkers making its way up the pathway towards the gate. Some of them had stopped and were pressing in against the inner fence, their faces pressing against the wire in what would have been a comical manner had the fence not begun to bend and creak against the pressure already.

Without another moment of hesitation, I jerked my head towards the beat-up truck parked in the field. Rick and Daryl both nodded.

“Clear ‘em for as long as you can,” Rick instructed, glancing between Tyreese and Sasha with that piercing blue-eyed look he always gave when handing out orders. “Maggie, Glenn – open the gate for us. We’ll bait ‘em.”

#

I insisted on handling the piglets myself.

Daryl drove, Rick held the wooden crate we were using to transport the poor little things outside the fence. Once Maggie and Glenn had pulled open the outer gate at the end of the road that ran through the inner field, we were on our way, bouncing across the uneven ground behind the group of walkers that were beating down our fences.

As we bounded along, I made the mistake of looking into the crate, at the four tiny piglets all pressed up against each other, snorting little panicked sounds as they tried to see what was going on. My heart squeezed in my chest.

“I have decided I do not like this,” I remarked, glancing over at Rick with an over dramatic pout.

He shook his head. “We don’t have much of a choice. It’s them or us.”

I rolled my eyes. “No need to be so dramatic. Let a girl have some compassion.”

“Now!” came Daryl’s yell from the driver’s seat.

Without hesitation, I reached in and collected one of the piglets and tossed it to the grassy ground behind the truck’s trey with a chipper, “_Yeet._”

When I looked back at Rick, he was giving me a look of slight amusement. “Compassion, she says.”

Daryl jerked the truck back into second gear and we were thrust forward, almost joining the piglet on the grassy field.

“Steady!” Rick yelled.

Daryl threw a hand in the air as an apology.

The piglet in the field let out a high squeal of panic and pain. My heart shuddered in my chest, contorting my face into a grimace for a fraction of a moment before I forced myself to shove the pang of sympathy back down. Rick caught my eye across the box, lips pursed and eyes sad. I could tell this wasn’t easy on him, either. Not only was he likely thinking on the effect this would have on Carl, but also the fact that, despite his many lectures, he had allowed _himself _to grow attached.

“He’ll understand,” I said, raising my voice only as loud as I needed to for Rick to hear me over both the growling walkers and rumbling engine.

Rick’s lips pursed further into a frown. “I can’t help but feel like he won’t.”

“Rick. He will. Trust me.”

His crystalline eyes met mine over the crate of piglets, a serious steeliness to them I hadn’t seen in a while. He surveyed what he could see of me, eyes lingering momentarily on the curve of my bicep which was now tensed as I gripped the side of the truck’s tray to remain upright. When his gaze returned to mine, it was slightly softer than before, and that tight downward curve of his mouth had loosened. But, before he could open his mouth to explain whether or not he’d just been checking me out or trying to determine if he really could actually trust me, Daryl’s voice rung out from the driver’s seat as he slowed back to first gear.

“Again!”

I reached into the crate of pigs with a somewhat guilty look at Rick before trapping it between my thighs, unsheathing my knife, and slicing a small cut into the poor thing’s rump. It squealed something horrible, drawing the attention of the feasting walkers, who turned and began to shuffle along behind us. I waited until they were much closer before letting the piglet down onto the grassy field.

“Goin’!”

We continued like this until the last piglet in the bunch, halfway down the forest path that lead away from the prison. It was then that things got a little dicey. The narrow path was old and full of potholes, which only seemed to make the bouncing worse than the uneven ground of the field. When we stopped to drop off the final piglet, drawing the walkers towards the crossroads which we would turn down to get back to the main road, something… not-great happened.

Daryl kicked the truck back into second gear just as the back-right tyre hit a bump. Rick’s grip slipped free of the tray’s metallic edge and he tumbled forwards, head over heel, onto the rough gravel ground. The sound of his body hitting the road and the subsequent grunt he made from the impact drew the attention of the handful of walkers that had been unable to get close enough to the pig to get a bite. I watched as they turned, much too close to the unarmed Rick for comfort, as I was being moved further and further away.

“Stop!” I screamed, slamming the base of the tray with one hand whilst using my other to catapult me out, onto the road. My feet hit the gravel with an expert grace and I sprinted forwards, practically leaping over Rick and throwing my body into the walker that had been about an inch from taking a bite out of his exposed back.

We went tumbling down, into another pack. I barely managed to get my knife out and start slashing before those damned things had me surrounded. Rick recovered quickly enough, grabbing one of the undead men in front of me by the back of the shirt and hauling him away from me. I kicked out a few times to keep the walkers at a safe distance whilst I dexterously slid between two of them and out of the pack. Rick grabbed my arm and began to drag me towards the idling truck.

Daryl was standing on the driver’s seat, looking over the hap-hazardously removed rooftop with his crossbow pointed at the walkers behind us.

As we awkwardly hobbled towards the truck, I felt something gripping my other shoulder and turned my head in a panic to make sure it wasn’t a walker’s hand.

It wasn’t. I kind of wished it had been.

My gaze met a pair of big, beady black eyes the colour of midnight, set into an oval shaped head covered in reptilian scales. The things large mouth was spread into a wide, toothy grin as it chattered ominously, those sharp fangs an inch from my face.

I admit it. I let out a bit of a girly scream, mostly out of shock than actual fear.

My arm slipped free of Rick’s as I spun, trying to push and claw at the thing, but it had my shoulders gripped like a damn koala joey to its mother.

“Syn!” Rick yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

I stopped, almost froze mid-claw, and looked at him with questioning eyes. It had to be kind of obvious, right?

The walkers were gaining on us, but I almost didn’t care. Those talons were digging into the flesh of my collarbones and it _hurt_.

“You bit?” he asked, eyes wide, mouth open in a mixture of concern and shock.

“_No_,” I answered. My voice broke on the word as I search Rick’s expression for anything other than the usual amount of fear, but… nope. He just looked like a guy that had almost been eaten by an undead man. Nothing unusual.

“Syn, come on! Get in the damn truck!” Daryl yelled.

Okay, from his vantage point, _surely _he could see the thing clinging to me like a damn reptilian nightmare.

But, again. Like Rick, he looked no more stressed out than he ought to be, given the situation.

I glanced over my shoulder at the little fucker.

He just chittered and grinned wider.

He was _Glamoured_. The little shit had coated himself in illusion magic, hiding his form from mortal eyes. Now I looked like a damn moron.

Rick reached out his hand and this time I took it, clearing my throat as he began to pull me back towards the idling truck. This time, I let him, though it wasn’t without a troubled look at the creature clinging to my shoulder.

The damn thing rode my back the whole way to the prison, holding on even after I’d climbed free of the truck and began to make my way back towards the half-dug graves with Daryl. Glenn and Sasha had replaced the wooden posts holding up the fence, which mean it was safe for us to continue with our work.

The creature even kept its taloned grip on me when Rick reached out and caught my upper arm, his hand barely an inch away from brushing against the reptilian’s clawed finger.

“Got a sec?”

I swallowed back the panicked lump in my throat, resisting the urge to glance once again at the creature gripping painfully onto my shoulder, and forced a smile. “Sure.”

Daryl halted, too, turning back to look at Rick and I as we stepped back toward the truck. I could see him leaning against the fence, waiting and watching.

“I just…” Rick lowered his head, turning away slightly as he cleared his throat. We were standing so close the tips of our boots were almost touching. “I just wanted to let you know that… I _do_ trust you.”

I blinked once in surprise.

“And I appreciate… everything you’ve done for Carl.” He swallowed back something and let out a short breath before those bright eyes lifted to meet mine. “I mean it.”

Despite the fact I currently had a pair of claws digging into the flesh of my damn shoulders, I felt a warming in my chest, and smiled back at Rick with genuine glee. “Don’t mention it, Ricky.”

He snorted a small chuckle, shook his head, and gave me another charming little grin before, from behind us, Daryl cleared his throat.

“We got shit to do, don’t we?” he asked in a none-too-friendly voice.

I cleared my throat and took an unintentional step away from Rick. “We sure do,” I remarked in reply, glancing over towards Daryl and catching the slightest of glimpses of the reptilian hand hooked over my shoulder. _We sure do_.

Lord knew, I did.

#

I put up with the damn gremlin-looking motherfucker clinging to me for a solid three hours before I got a moment to myself to deal with it. Daryl noted my tense silence whilst we dug, though I managed to convince him it was a more exhaustion than anything else. He didn’t question it much further, likely because he himself wasn’t in the best of moods, either. The man barely met my gaze for the remainder of the day, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

Usually, I’d stick around to find out, but today I had something of more importance to do.

So, I left the sulky Daryl on his lonesome whilst I went off to find a secure place to be alone. I settled on one of the abandoned hallways on the inner walls of D-Block, one that lead towards Death Row. Once I was quite sure no one else was about, I reached behind me and latched onto the creature’s scaled back. It let out a sharp sound of surprise as I yanked, taring its claws free of my flesh with a searing rip and tossing it none-too-kindly down the barren hall.

“Motherfu–“ I began to screech out in pain, managing only just to catch myself before my voice grew too loud.

Blood poured from the wounds where the little goblinesque creature’s talons had been dug into my flesh, burning in the stagnant air of the abandoned hall. My body almost vibrated from the effort it was taking me not to curse, until I began to sense my magic beginning to hum through me, caressing the six rough gashes left behind until they were little more than scratches.

“That fucking hurt, you little Unseelie shit,” I hissed through clenched teeth at the creature, as it tried to righten itself, damp claws slipping on the piles of paper strewn about the hall. It would have been comical had I not been so pissed.

Once it had gained its footing, the creature looked up at me with those midnight eyes glinting.

Despite its sharp teeth and nasty claws, the little thing wasn’t actually all that dangerous. To me or the humans in my care. My adoptive brother, Sterling, had spent quite a lot of time teaching me as much as he could about the fae world we were both part of. Apparently, I had actually paid attention, because I knew that this little reptilian creature was actually a _Glasithinn_, a type of Unseelie hobgoblin that drinks disease like wine and eats only rotting flesh.

Not much of a surprise that it found its way here.

It made a small whining sound as it slumped, leaning forwards on its long forearms and looking up at me like a kicked puppy. Had it not looked like a disturbing mixture of a gremlin and one of those critters from… well, _Critters_… it might have even been cute.

Again, it chittered those teeth, and for the first time I swear I could actually hear words forming in the base of its throat. They weren’t in English and were too guttural for me to make out clearly, but I was almost certain they were words in _Fae_.

Sterling had taught me to speak the native dialect of the faeries, both Unseelie and Seelie strains, but I wasn’t quite what one would call “fluent”. Besides, I was used to faeries speaking in clear, crisp voices, slowing down their sentences to give me more of a chance at translating on the fly.

“You. Hurt. Me.” I tried to say in _Fae_, gesturing between us and the blood coating my shirt with a frown.

The thing actually lowered its head, as if in apology, and chittered out something in a high-pitched tone. It began to back away, towards the propped open double doors at the end of the hall.

“No, no,” I pleaded, lifting both my hands, attempting to gesture that I wasn’t going to harm it. Of course, I kind of forgot that lifting your hands, palms facing outwards, to one of the Fae was as good as pointing a loaded gun at them. The _glasithinn _let out a squeak and skittered backwards before I had a chance to drop my hands, turning on its stubby feet and running from the hall on all fours.

I began to chase after him, screaming words in Fae that probably sounded like fancy gibberish to anyone listening in.

“_Toirfan_! _Ais’taris_!”

Otherwise known as, “Stop, wait! Come back!”

The little hobgoblin didn’t listen. He rounded a corner, skidding across discarded pieces of paper as he went. I followed along behind him, running whilst partially bent at the hip, arms outstretched, reaching out to snatch the little critter up from the floor. But he was moving too quick and, in a show of just how shitty my luck was, someone opened the door to the outside just as the _glasithinn _reached it. The creature slipped between Carol’s legs – startling her so much she jumped sideways, into the hallway wall – and dashed out into the dusk air.

I skidded to a halt before I crashed headfirst into the half-closed door. My fingers only just caught it before it shut against the doorframe, though by the time I swung it back open and stepped outside, the little fucker was nowhere to be seen.

“_Déancach_!” I spat. It wasn’t a curse that translated well into English, its literal meaning being something along the lines of “made of shit”. I took it to mean something more like “shithead” or “asshole”.

“Was that a cat?” Carol asked, sounding out of breath as she moved away from the wall and watched me step back inside.

“I’d go far enough to call it a little pussy, sure,” I responded flippantly, turning in place to look at her, wiping all frustration from my expression and plastering on a smile in its place.

Carol’s short grey hair looked windswept, as if she had been running. She regarded me with wide eyes, her shoulders tensed as she held her hands behind her back. Even the set of her jaw was taut.

All these things, I noticed. And, all these things, I purposefully ignored. I should have remarked on it, asked her what she was up to, or even stuck around to make some – any – kind of conversation.

But I didn’t. I was too preoccupied with my own shit. And for that, I don’t think I’ll ever truly forgive myself.

And, so, with an awkward wave and an overly chipper “well, nighty night”, I slipped out the door and left Carol to her whims.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day lads, ladies, and those in-between. Miss me? I apologise for not posing for a week, things - as you all know - have been rather hectic lately.  
I do hope you enjoyed this update - I know it's a little different than usual! As always, don't forget to leave a comment if you enjoyed! And stay safe and healthy!
> 
> Pronunciation-Nation!  
Glasithinn - g-la-ze-thin (gutteral g)  
Toirfan - Te-ore-fvan  
Ais'taris - Ah-es-tar-es  
Déancach - D-eh-anne-ca-ch (gutteral ch)
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	31. From a Spark to a Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the distance, something burns. The smell tickles an old memory inside Synnove. But what is it? Does she even want to know?

I did not get a fitful sleep that night.

Not that that was much of a surprise. There was a damn rogue faerie running about the prison, a deadly disease spreading through the populace, and I must have hit my nose or something because everything smelt burnt to me.

My makeshift bed for the night was an old mattress that had once belonged to Charlie, placed in the dark corner beneath the metal staircase in the cell-block common room. I could hear Rick softly breathing from his mattress where it rested a handful of feet from me, pushed up against the corner wall. Everything around me was seemingly plotting against my need for sleep.

Admittedly, I required less than the average mortal, but I still _needed_ it. Especially after a day like today.

I slid off the mattress and climbed out from beneath the staircase, grabbing my leather jacket as I began to make my way outside.

“Where’re you goin’?” came a voice from the darkness behind me.

“Go back to sleep, Rick.”

There was a shuffling sound and then the slap of bare feet against concrete as he made a move to follow me. “I told you that I trusted you.”

That odd statement made me jerk my head to the side. I partially turned my body around to look at him with a cocked brow. “Past tense suggesting you no longer do?”

He let out a harsh breath through his throat, taking another step forward, the thin wedge of moonlight streaming in through the window striking his face, illuminating those crystal eyes of his. “Convince me that I should.”

“Because I’m remarkably charming?” I responded, turning fully to face him. My cheery grin diminished when I saw the taut line of his frown. I tried something more serious. “Because I’ve never lied to you.”

“What about that little book club of yours? Teaching the kids how to use weapons behind my back,” Rick stated simply in response. “You call that not lyin’?”

I felt the warmth drain from my face. His disappointed look struck me harder than I’d have believed. “Behind your back?” I asked incredulously, taking a step towards him with. “Rick, you made it very clear you wanted nothing to do with the council or its decisions.”

“It wasn’t a council decision, was it?” he spat, his voice rising in volume. He caught himself before he continued, realising he was growing too loud, and shook his head. When he spoke next, it was little more than a whisper. “You knew I wouldn’t like it.”

“The only thing I knew was that you wouldn’t like me teaching Carl,” I responded. “So, I didn’t.”

Rick snorted. “And what makes Carl different from the other kids and their parents?”

“You.” The answer came out too fast for my liking, so I scrambled to say something else. “I just – you don’t… No one should ever have to lose a kid, Rick. I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemy – and I’d wish a lot of heinous things on that fucker.” I felt the sudden emotion in my voice and swallowed back against the sharp sensation in my throat. “I had to do what I thought was… well, not the right thing, but… The thing I thought would be the smartest. To eliminate that risk.”

Rick’s face, though distorted in the dim light, seemed to soften slightly. There was a long moment before he spoke next, during which I could feel his eyes searching my expression for something. I don’t know what he found there as I’d lost control of the damn thing.

Maybe my entire history was written on my face. My parents, my baby sister, all of the heartache and darkness I’d faced throughout my short life. Or, maybe, I just looked fucking exhausted. Who knew?

Either way, his voice grew gentle. “I understand,” he sighed. “But you should’a told me.”

I pursed my lips, feeling – of all things – shame beginning to warm my cheeks. Of course, I’d never actually known his distaste for the idea as a fact. But I’d suspected. And, despite my point of his refusal to be included in council decisions, what he had said was also true. It hadn’t been a council decision. It had been my own.

Well, and Carol’s, but I wasn’t about to throw her under the bus if he didn’t know she’d had a part in it.

“Did Daryl know?” Rick asked. The question had an odd undertone to it, as if it had been asked hesitantly, or in caution. Like he didn’t want to know the answer.

“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t want to risk him talking me out of it.”

“Because he could’ve?” Rick asked, though… Honestly, it sounded more like a statement.

I shrugged one shoulder, not entirely committing one way or another. There was no way I was going to admit that to Rick. Even though he was definitely looking at me like he already knew the answer.

“Look, I’m willin’ to forgive you this,” he breathed after another long moment. “But you can’t be doin’ shit like that behind everyone’s back. The other parents deserve to know.”

I pursed my lips in distaste but knew better than to argue, lowering my gaze to the floor.

The reality was that the parents and guardians did deserve to have their say. I’d had no right to make the decision for them when it came to their children. I just hated the idea of leaving them defenceless. _Hated_ it.

Well. I guess there was nothing outwardly wrong about charming them all over to my realm of thinking, now, was there?

“After the sickness passes,” Rick continued, “you and I will sit ‘em all down and tell them.”

I gave him a nod.

“And they can choose whether or not they want their kids to participate,” he finished.

I can’t believe I had the nerve to ask, but I lifted my gaze to meet his and said, “And Carl?”

He visibly flinched at the thought. “We’ll talk about it.”

And that was that.

He reached out to touch my arm, calloused hands gently caressing my skin for a moment before he gave a little smile and turned back towards his makeshift bed. “Goodnight. Say hi to Daryl for me.”

The lingering warmth of his skin on mine faded in a snap. I snorted an indignant chuckle.

Of course, he knew exactly where I was going, didn’t he? “I will.”

#

Daryl was sitting up in the camper chair on the outside of the tower wall, staring down at the wire fence. He had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his crossbow resting across his lap.

The hatch creaked as I pushed it open.

“Syn?” Daryl asked, turning his head to glance my way over his shoulder.

“The one and only,” I remarked, climbing up and slowly lowering the hatch back down.

He grunted in acknowledgement as he reached behind him, pulling out the other chair and unfolding it before placing it beside his own.

I slid outside and sunk down into it, taking a deep breath in through my nose. There was no sickly-sweet stench of disease, only smoke and the slightest tang of sweat. A relieved sigh escaped me.

Silently, Daryl pulled another cigarette out of his crumpled pocket-packet and handed it to me. I nodded my thanks as he lit it with his silver zippo and took in a long inhale.

A comfortable silence settled between us as we stared out at the rattling fence down below. I could hear the low rumble of growling walkers beneath the soft sounds of rustling leaves in the warm summer wind.

At some point, I must have drifted off. My exhausted body slumped down in the camper chair, head rolling to the side to rest against the curve of Daryl’s shoulder. Some time must have passed because the next thing I was aware of was the beginning of sunlight streaming through the top branches of the surrounding trees. A line of light illuminated my eyelids and I unintentionally jerked my head away. There was a snorted sound of surprise from the warm shoulder beneath my cheek and I pulled away slightly, turning my head slightly to dazedly gaze towards the sound’s origin.

Daryl’s heavy-lidded eyes looked back at me, seemingly still half asleep. His nose was barely a millimetre from mine.

The sudden realisation of our proximity startled the both of us into alertness. I jerked back, back into the centre of my own chair just as Daryl straightened in his own, clearing his throat and lifting a hand to rub sleep from his eye.

I push myself up, onto my unsteady legs, and shuffled over to the railing. A plastic watering-can rested at the end of the balcony. I made my way over to it, picked it up, and began watering Mato, whose pot was still hooked to the metal railing. The bright red of the small tomatoes contrasted so heavily against the dreary green and grey backdrop, it almost appeared to be in an otherworldly kind of technicolor.

I took a long breath through my nose and felt my face contort into a scowl of confusion. Smoke. I could still smell that damn smoke. A distinct scent of something burning. It was lingering, as if whatever had been set alight was now extinguished. But something about that scent was… unsettlingly familiar.

I turned to look at Daryl. “You smell that?”

He blinked, shading his eyes from the stream of light caressing his face from the rising sun. “What?”

I scrunched up my face further. “Burning.”

Daryl’s brows furrowed as he rose out of his chair.

Without another word, I began to make my way down the tower’s steep stairs. Daryl followed along behind me, not without a handful of grumbled protests, and out into the dawn air. If he asked me what the hell I was doing, I didn’t hear it – not that I’d know how to answer if I had. My instincts were screaming at me to investigate the smell, that it was familiar to me for reasons far outside the realm of “good”.

Daryl walked in step beside me as I made my way towards D-Block, practically in a trance. We entered the common area as silently as we could, knowing most of the occupants would be still asleep.

I kept going, down the blood-stained corridor of cells that would never quite be rid of that smell, and through the back gate towards the hall.

God. The burning stench hung in the hallway like an unseen fog. Its strength struck me so forcefully that I actually lost my bearings for a moment, stumbling blindly forwards until Daryl reached out to grasp my upper arm and steady me.

He opened his mouth to ask if I was okay but snapped it shut, eyes sliding towards the end of the corridor. Slowly, he lifted a finger to his lips before jerking his head forwards to indicate he could hear something coming from further inside the building.

I heard it, then, too. The sounds of heavy breathing and thundering, almost panicked footfalls. It was coming from the turn off at the end of the hall, somewhere off to the left, towards the solitary cells.

Silently, I reached up to touch Daryl’s hand where it rested on my arm, offering him a nod of reassurance as I began to move forwards, sliding out of his reach. The thundering footfalls drew closer and I made my way cautiously towards them.

It wasn’t long before their owner appeared at the mouth of the corridor, sweat coating his brow and a wide, panicked look in his dark eyes. He was breathing heavily through clenched teeth, making a kind of hissing sound on each exhale. The moment his gaze met mine, his shoulders tightened and his lips curled up into a feral snarl. It was such an out of place expression on a face that I was used to seeing a smile upon.

“What did you do?” Tyreese hissed. He took a series of aggressive steps forwards, hands rising until they were held in front of him, looking as if he yearned to grab my shoulders and shake an answer out of me. “What _did you do_?”

Daryl let out a “hey” in warning as Tyreese grew nearer.

He needn’t have bothered. As soon as Ty came too close, I smoothly slid beneath his outstretched arm, stepping around his large form until I was behind him, where I turned to face his exposed back.

“What have I supposedly done this time?” I asked in exasperation.

The towering man whirled to face me.

I wondered, distantly, if he’d intentionally chosen to have his back to Daryl instead of me, or if that was the panicked look in his gaze making those decisions for him.

“How could you?” he asked, voice a harsh, strained whisper. “She was your _friend_!”

After practically screaming that last word, Ty launched himself at me. Once again, I ducked beneath his arm, easily skipping behind him. He was used to tackling far larger opponents, that much was made obvious by how wide he held his hands and the straight set of his shoulders. Smaller targets had never been something he’d had to deal with. He never even thought to narrow the gap between his hands to give me less time to move when he snatched at me.

“Ty, slow down,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

Daryl reached out, placing a rough hand on my bare shoulder and pulling me back a step, putting himself between me and Tyreese’s crazed glare. “Hey, man. Come on. Let’s talk.”

“_Talk_?” Tyreese echoed, sounding as if it were the most outlandish suggestion he had heard in a while. “I don’t need to _talk_!” He eyed me over Daryl’s shoulder. “I need to know why – why you’d – how you could…”

His anger dissolved alarmingly fast, replaced by a stricken look of despair. He couldn’t even finish his sentence, just stood there, arms falling to his sides as he shook his head.

I stepped out from behind Daryl, heart suddenly in my throat. That smell that clung to ever atomic fibre of the hallway suddenly began to coax a blurred memory. “Ty… What happened?”

The force of his earlier anger seemed to have exhausted him. It looked almost as if he didn’t even have the strength to lift his head and look at us. That blurred memory began to grow clearer as I stepped closer to him.

I felt Daryl tense behind me as I lifted my hands. “Ty…”

His jaw clenched, a muscle in his cheek twitching.

I paused, glancing over my shoulder at Daryl and whispering, “Go get Rick.”

He looked about ready to argue.

My look grew steely. “Daryl. Go.”

That memory, the blurred image, materialised into a high definition picture. A body curled in on itself, gnarled limbs bent at unnatural angles. The once beautiful, unblemished porcelain skin now blacker than coal. And that smell, coating the air, choking me with its thick, putrid stench.

Burnt flesh.

That was the smell. I was certain of it.

Daryl bit back against his argument, no doubt seeing the look on my face, turning on his heel and disappearing through the door.

I turned back to Tyreese, the sharp sensation that had begun to piece the inside of my throat obscuring my speech. “Please, Ty. Tell me what happened.”

He let out a hoarse sound. A sob.

My chest gave a pained throb.

“I – I don’t know.” He shook his head again. “I just found ‘em like that.”

My eyes squeezed shut, my throat constricting, rendering me unable to ask the question I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to. _Found who_? Was there any point vocalising it? The answer was obvious. Who had we quarantined in those cells that warranted this kind of reaction from Tyreese?

I was close enough to him now to reach out and touch him, though I restrained the urge, sensing physical comfort was not something he wanted right now. From this proximity, I could practically feel the thrum of anger buried beneath that suffocating grief.

“Okay,” I sighed, allowing my eyes to open. They remained dry out of sheer force of will. “Take me to them.”

Tyreese shook his head. “I – I can’t.”

I didn’t push it. It was likely that I’d be able to simply follow the smell. As much as I _really, really _didn’t want to. But I needed to know. To see it for myself. Gods knew why.

So, I slipped around Tyreese’s shaking form as he leant sideways against the hallway wall, hand lifted to press against his eyes, and began to head down the corridor. He remained where he was.

The journey down the narrow passageway seemed to stretch on for far longer than it had any right to. I knew, in reality, the smell wasn’t travelling a distance. It was close. I could practically taste it at this point. My heart grew heavier with each step, throat tightening the denser that smell became. There was a small voice inside my head whispering that I didn’t want to see what lay beyond that metal door at the end of the dark hall, that I should turn back now and save myself the pain. But another part of me knew that I needed to. That I owed it to both of them to see it all.

On the floor and along the skirting along the bottom of the right wall was a trail of recently dried blood. I could smell the copper tang beneath the burnt flesh. It was not an attractive smell.

When I reached the metallic door at the end of the hall, I felt myself hesitate. It was slightly ajar, a thin wedge of dim morning light illuminating the filthy hall, allowing a glimpse of smoky tendrils writhing in the air on the other side of the door.

A sick feeling settled in my stomach.

I swallowed it back and pushed open the door.

#

I hadn’t moved from the spot I’d been standing in for the past ten minutes.

Tyreese had returned, no doubt through a mighty show of willpower, towing both Rick and Daryl along. They’d both spat out a curse when they’d spotted what remained of Karen and David; the two burnt husks lying, blackened, in the centre of the solitary yard. The smell of burnt flesh had long since settled into the very fibre of my clothing. I’d never get it out.

My mind had been spinning in circles ever since I’d stepped out here.

_How, when, why, who_?

“How” was easy. The trail of blood indicated they’d been killed elsewhere – likely their beds, in their _fucking sleep_ – and dragged out here.

“When” was also pretty simple. Last night.

Had it really been Karen’s body I’d been smelling when I couldn’t get to sleep? The thought made my chest ache, both in guilt and sorrow.

The “why” of it was… also, unfortunately, quite obvious. The sickness. Someone had wanted to burn it out before it overtook the populace. Not an entirely ridiculous ideology, I’d admit, but certifiably useless in this particular circumstance. Karen and David had been in quarantine. Whatever damage they’d been likely to do would have already been done.

All of these theories, of course, were made on the assumption that the perpetrator was _human_.

What if… No.

I shook my head, the first movement I’d made since stepping out here. The hand that had been resting flat against the base of my throat fell to my side.

I couldn’t go down that road. The _glasithinn_ may have been Unseelie, but it wasn’t senselessly cruel. If it was even cruel at all. I mean, it _did_ feed on the diseased and rotting. Why would it rid itself of a perfectly good meal?

I swallowed back the urge to vomit as that thought passed by me.

Daryl, who had been standing beside me whilst Rick looked over the area with those cop eyes of his, seemed to notice my sudden unease and reached out silently to place a comforting hand on the back of my shoulder. He must have assumed it was the bodies making me feel sick.

If only he knew.

It took me a second to realise Carol was there, too. Her shoulders were hunched forwards as she hovered by the back wall. The posture made her look small and frail. Almost purposefully so.

“You found them like this?” Rick asked. The man looked horrified at the sight before him, his head shaking from side-to-side, eyes bright with disbelief.

Tyreese, who was standing before the remains, practically vibrating with rage, nodded. He held himself with one arm around his chest, his other hand rubbing the base of his chin. It took him a second to snap out the daze he was in and acknowledge Rick’s question. “I came to see Karen,” he said, voice soft. “Then I saw the blood on the floor.” He scrunched his nose in disgust. “Then I smelt them.”

His enclosed posture shifted, becoming aggressive as he lowered his hands and gestured with a violet motion at the line of blood leading up to the charred remains of his girlfriend. “Somebody _dragged_ them out here!” he yelled, distraught. “And set them on _fire_!”

I felt my chest constrict slightly at the way his voice broke on the last word.

“They killed them and set them on fire!” Tyreese whirled on Rick.

Both Daryl and I made a move to step closer to him. My hands twitched, prepared to grab the man if he tried anything. Daryl paced back and forth behind him uneasily, watching the towering man with the intense gaze of a hunter.

“You’re a cop,” Ty stated. “You find who did this and you bring ‘em to me.”

Rick lifted his hands slowly, putting his palms up between himself and Tyreese. “I know what you’re feeling,” he tried to say, his voice low. I could feel the sympathy behind his words and knew it would be lost on Tyreese. He was too involved in his own anger right now. “I’ve been there. You saw me there, remember? It’s dangerous.”

“You can’t?” Ty asked, though it obviously wasn’t a question. He spun on the spot to face me, his dark eyes near the point of crazed. “I bet you could, couldn’t you? You’d find ‘em. You’d bring ‘em to me.”

“There are a lot of things I could do, Ty,” I responded, keeping my voice as even as possible. “But I’m not making any promises until you calm down.”

He was a big bloke and somewhat intimidating, even for a human, but I kept my ground as he took a step towards me.

“_Calm down_?” he repeated back at me in a harsh whisper. “Karen didn’t deserve this. David didn’t deserve this.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Nobody deserves_ this_,” Tyreese hissed, taking another step toward me.

The moment he got within reach of me, Daryl stepped forward and grabbed onto his shoulder. Tyreese whirled instantly, grabbing the front of Daryl’s shirt and pushing him back until he was pressed up against the metal cell wall behind him.

My body moved out of instinct, following along behind Tyreese, hand extended and ready to rip him away from Daryl by any means necessary. But Daryl lifted a hand in warning, meeting my gaze over Tyreese’s shoulder, and shook his head.

It took so much will power to freeze in place that my hands curled into tight fists, nails biting into my palm. I could feel myself glaring at Tyreese’s back, just waiting for an excuse to move against him. Every muscle in my body was on high alert. As much as I trusted Daryl’s judgement, my instincts yearned to protect him, to remove the threat he was facing. The sheer strength of that urge was somewhat startling to me.

Rick was beside me in an instant. Behind us, Carol let out a sound of surprise.

“I ain’t going nowhere ‘till I found out _who did this_!” Tyreese yelled.

My chest rose and fell rapidly as I watched, teeth clenched in anticipation.

_Get away from him_. I could feel magic beginning to stir within me and was silently glad my fists were clenched shut.

Daryl met Tyreese’s gaze evenly. “We’re on the same side man,” he said, voice soft and non-confrontational.

Rick cautiously stepped closer; hands still raised despite the fact the man had his back to him. “Look, we all know what you’re going through. We’ve all lost someone.”

Daryl nodded in agreement.

My body, still anxiously tensed, moved closer.

“We know how you feel right now, but you’ve got to calm down,” Rick continued. At this point, he was close enough to touch Tyreese’s shoulder. The second his hand made contact, Ty let Daryl slip free of his grip and whirled on Rick.

I, admittedly not very subtly, slid between Tyreese’s back and Daryl.

“You need to step the hell back!” Ty yelled, pointing toward Rick with an aggressive finger.

Rick didn’t listen. Hands still raised, he took half a step closer, opening his mouth to make another attempt to calm him down. Tyreese didn’t want to hear it. He swung, meaty fist striking the side of Rick’s face with a cringe-worthy _crunch_. The sheriff stumbled back, tripping over his own unsteady feet and fell to the concrete ground.

As Tyreese moved to take another swing, I leapt forwards, before either Daryl or the startled Carol could even react. My hand latched around Tyreese’s raised forearm as he moved forwards, pulling it back and up, forcing him to bend at the hip or risk his shoulder and arm separating. I then kicked the back of his leg, snapping his knee joint forwards and bringing him down into an involuntary kneel. He began to thrash in an attempt to get out of my grip.

“Calm down,” I said, leaning down so that I was practically whispering into his ear.

He jerked again, trying to pull away from me with a grunt of effort. My grip remained strong. Too strong.

“_Tyreese_. I will find out who did this.”

His panting breaths slowed.

“Do you hear me?” I hissed to the back of his head. There was no forced conviction in my voice. I _meant_ it. “I _will_ find them.” 

And then, suddenly, Rick was there, having climbed up onto his feet. He grabbed onto the front of Tyreesse’s shirt and landed a solid punch to his jaw.

I was so startled by the sheriff’s actions, my grip slid free and I watched Tyreese fall to the concrete ground beside Karen’s charred corpse with raised brows. Without even an ounce of hesitation, Rick lowered himself over the man and struck again. And again.

Carol screamed out for him to stop. Her panicked sounds broke me free of my shock.

Daryl and I both leapt forwards at the same time, each grabbing one of Rick’s arms and hauling him backwards, away from the man now cowered on the floor.

“Get off me!” Rick yelled, trying to wrestle himself out of our grip to no avail. “Get _off _me!”

“Get off yourself, asshole,” I snapped back, planting my foot and spinning to the side, using the momentum to sling-shot Rick backwards. Daryl let him slip through his grip, watching as Rick’s back struck the wall behind him. “The hell’s wrong with you?” I asked. “I had him.”

Rick didn’t respond. He looked as surprised as we were at his actions, peering down at his hands, at the blood splattered across the broken skin of his knuckles, his eyes wide.

Daryl and I shared an uneasy look. Carol stood off to the side, hands over her mouth in shock, whilst Tyreese lay on the ground, curled partially into a ball, his sobs the only sound left in the entire yard.

#

It was a rough day.

Tyreese had insisted on digging Karen’s grave himself, despite the fact I was pretty sure his nose was broken, and the flesh around his left eye had already begun to swell. He wanted nothing to do with me or my attempts to help him. Daryl had to practically drag me away.

Cell Block A, otherwise known as “Death Row”, was beginning to fill up. People from Cell Block D were beginning to show symptoms at unnervingly increasing speeds. So far, the only saving grace was that neither Ana nor Tayra had displayed even a slight cough. The most recent case was Sasha. She’d stumbled out of D-Block looking almost like a walker herself, right where Hershel, Glenn, and I had been talking. Sweat coated her alarmingly ashen skin and red circles hung beneath her unfocused eyes. A horrid cough racked her body so forcefully she stumbled forwards, only barely managing to catch herself on the fence post. We all took a step towards her, our conversation halted, but she threw up a hand to caution us away.

Glenn and Hershel both stopped, taking half a step back. I ignored her.

“G-get back. You’ll get –“

She doubled over into a coughing fit, her body shaking so violently I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to steady her. My hand touched the bare skin of her shoulder, feeling the feverish heat radiating off her, and I bit back a curse. That smell hung heavy around her, too. The sweet and coppery tang of disease.

Glenn let out a startled sound as Hershel took in a deep inhale.

“Synnove,” the old man breathed.

“It’ll be fine,” I said as I pulled Sasha’s arm over my shoulder and began to half-carry her towards A-Block. “I’ll have a burning shower later, hey?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Glenn remarked softly, staring after Sasha and I as we went.

Once we arrived at the doors of A-Block, the smell of disease hit me with such force I almost gagged. Sasha seemed to notice my immediate discomfort and began to try and pull away from me.

“You don’t need to go in, too,” she hoarsely said. “I can take it from here.”

I opened my mouth to argue but she cut me off.

“Dr S is in there. He’ll make sure I’m alright.” She lifted a hand to give me a thankful tap on the shoulder before slinking off inside the door.

I didn’t feel right about leaving her to find her way alone, but… Selfish as it may have been, the strength of that smell was noxious. I had the upmost faith she’d make it from there, that Dr S would help her if she needed it.

So, I left, headed to the bathroom, where I intended to make good on my word for a scolding shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola! I hope everyone is doing well and keeping safe!  
Thank you, as always, for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. As per usual, I invite you all to leave a comment! I always love reading them :D
> 
> Once again, I hope you're all safe and healthy. 
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress xx


	32. A Recipe for Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove and the others meet to discuss their options.

A group of us met for a pseudo council meeting the next morning.

Considering we were basically split down the middle, with half of us in isolation from the other, I hesitated to even call it a council meeting at all. Hershel seemed to be the only one bound by officialism. He sat at the head of the table, elbows leaning against the marked wood, a troubled expression pulling down his white brows.

Beside him was Daryl, sitting on a backwards-facing chair, forearms draped over the wooden backing. I had made a point of spinning my own chair around and comically mimicking his position.

It brought a smile to Hershel’s troubled face and pulled a soft laugh from both Carol and Glenn. When I grinned at Daryl, he just shook his head at me, but I could see the way his eyes softened and the lines on above his brow faded.

A light feeling filled my chest. It was nice to see that, even with the morbid reality of death and disease hanging over us, that I could still make someone laugh.

The mood didn’t last, of course. Hershel began his spiel about the rise of infected and I sunk down into my chair with a deep frown.

At some point, as he spoke, I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath through my nose in way of a sigh. My eyes snapped open.

The smell. It lingered in the air around me, faint yet definitely there. I straightened in my seat, my grip on the edge of the chairs backing growing so tight the wood gave an audible groan. Daryl’s head turned in my direction as if he had sensed my sudden rigidness from beside me.

I sniffed again. The smell was coming from my left, the opposite side Daryl was on. Without moving my head, I slid my gaze across to scan my companions. Other than her oddly ridged posture, Carol looked fine, if not a little troubled. If I focused hard enough, I could smell only the fading scent of smoke and… was that gasoline? Huh. She must have stepped in some back in the solitary yard. Karen and David had been drenched in the stuff before being set alight. Little pockets of puddles had been all around their bodies.

But… Had she even stepped close enough to…? No. Stop that train of thought. Stop it now. Continue later. Right now, there was something else to focus on.

My gaze slid from Carol, over to the slim man sitting at the opposite head of the table. Glenn. His skin had a slight sheen to it, as if he’d been sweating – though that could easily have been explained away by the weather and the fact he’d been shovelling dirt for hours before we’d called him in here. What couldn’t be explained away so easily, of course… was the smell that leaked out of every pore and corrupted the air around him.

My nose crinkled in mute disgust.

Hershel had been in the middle of saying something when I cleared my throat and asked, “Hey, Glenn. You feelin’ alright, mate?”

He glanced at me with a furrowed brow look. Under the light streaming in through the windows from the overcast sky, his skin looked paler than usual, glistening beneath that sheen of sweat. With a slight hitch to his shoulders, Glenn shook his head. “I’m fine.”

My brow lifted of its own accord. “You sure about that?”

I felt Daryl and Hershel both scrutinising me curiously as Glenn swallowed with a grimace. He took a second to answer, seemingly pausing to check how he actually felt, before he shook his head. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

No. He wasn’t.

Of course, the smell could be lingering on his clothes. He had buried two people today, both of which had died from the sickness. I could just be smelling that. He knew how he felt better than I did, right?

Before I could query that further, Hershel continued his earlier sentence. I turned back to him as he spoke, catching Daryl giving me an odd look from the corner of my eye.

“As I said, we keep the sick people in Cell Block A, just like we tried to do with Karen and David,” Hershel repeated.

I’d been about to ask Daryl why he was looking at me like that, but the mention of Karen’s name made my whole body just about freeze. My gaze snapped to Hershel. “And what, exactly, are we going to be doing about _that_?”

The old man took a deep breath, eyes downcast, before looking back up with a sad frown. “Ask Rick to look into it,” he answered. “Try and make a timeline. Who’s where when.”

I wanted to find them. To be the one that caught them first. It was a raw need, and a violent one at that. But I also wanted to help everyone else. To put a stop to this horrible disease spreading through the people I had come to feel responsible for. It felt as if I were caught between the two sides of me – the violent, instinctive fae side, and the compassionate, protective humanity within the darkness that I cherished.

I took a deep breath and consciously forced my anger to the side. “So… How do we stop this?”

“There is no stopping it,” Hershel answered with a deep frown.

Glenn sat back in his chair with a grunt of disappointment.

“You get it, you just have to go through it.”

“But it just kills you,” Carol said.

“The illness doesn’t,” Hershel explained. “It’s the symptoms that do. We need antibiotics.”

I snorted. “Trust me, we’ve been through practically every pharmacy this side of the city.”

“And then some,” Daryl said with a nod of agreement. He then paused a moment before straightening in his chair. “That veterinary college at West Peachtree Tech… That’s a place ain’t many people would think to hit. For meds, anyway.”

“That’s miles away,” Carol sighed, sinking back in her seat.

Daryl and I shared a glance. “It was too big of a risk before,” I began.

“But it ain’t now,” Daryl finished. “We’ll take a group out.”

Hershel pursed his lips before nodding, almost reluctantly. “Best not waste any more time.”

From the doorway, a familiar voice piped up with a stern, “I’m in.”

I looked up to see Michonne, leaning against the door frame, a focused look on her face. Hershel turned in his seat to look at her, his already troubled frown deepening.

“You haven’t yet been exposed,” he said. “Daryl and Synnove both have.”

I knew thanks to my apparent ability to sniffer-dog the disease that neither Daryl nor I were carriers. However, I couldn’t exactly outright say that without a torrent of unanswerable questions thrown my way, so I kept my mouth shut.

“You get into a car with either of them –“ Hershel continued.

Michonne cut him off, stepping further into the room with a bemused smile. “Please. He’s already given me fleas.”

I snorted a laugh. Daryl gave me a look of mock hurt to which I responded with a wide grin.

After a moment, Hershel nodded and pushed himself up, out of his chair. “I can lead the way,” he stated, hobbling forward a step. “I know where they’d keep everything.”

Again, Daryl and I shared a look. We both knew the old man would only be putting himself in danger out there with that leg of his. Not to mention – as bad as it sounds – he’d slow us down.

“Hershel…” I began.

He turned to look at me with wide, almost hopeful eyes. My nerve suddenly decided to take a holiday. I subtly nudged Daryl with my elbow.

Thankfully, he stepped forwards and gave Hershel a soft, somewhat sad smile. “When we’re out there… It’s always the same. Sooner or later, we end up runnin’.”

Hershel’s face fell, my heart along with it. “I’ll draw you a map,” he sighed in resignation.

#

The council also decided to separate the young and old from the rest of the potentially infected. Whilst Daryl began preparing for the trip, I snuck away to escort Tayra and Ava to their new homes in the administration building. Both girls were beyond excited to see me, which made my formally morbid mood lighten considerably.

“Hey, you little munchkins,” I greeted with a wide grin, accepting them both into a tight hug. “You packed and ready?”

They both nodded.

“Got Mr and Miss Piggy?” I asked, raising a brow in an exaggerated quizzical look.

They both giggled, lifting their respective stuffed piglets proudly for my inspection. The toys were both a little worse for wear nowadays, matted with dirt and specks of – was that blood? Before I got the chance to really answer that question, the two girls stuffed the piglets into their little bags – that had once been old pillowcases – and tossed them over their shoulders, almost perfectly in sync.

“We’re ready!” Tayra announced proudly.

I gave a little chuckle before taking both of their free hands and walking with them to the administration building. In the yard, just before the doors, Rick was walking alongside a none-too-pleased Carl. The young boy marched a few steps ahead of his father, footfalls heavy on the asphalt as if to make a point of his displeasure. When the older Grimes spotted me, he gave me a soft smile and jerked his head to the side, indicating he wanted to talk in private. I lead the twins up to the doors, where Carl was standing, and knelt to give them both kisses on the tops of their heads. Looking them in the eye, I tapped each of their noses with a gentle flick of my finger.

“You both behave, alright? Always do the opposite of what Aunty Syn would do, hmm?”

They both giggled a little at that, smiling up at me as they gave matching nods of understanding.

I glanced around, taking in how close Carl and Rick were standing, before I leant in and whispered to the girls, “If you see a little goblin-looking thing, stay away from it. Do not make friends. Kick it like a football. Got it?”

The girls, still a little too young to flippantly dismiss fantasy, gave me a serious nod.

I was not entirely comfortable leaving the prison with a damn glasithinn crawling about, but I figured those at the most risk were almost impossible for it to get to. A-Block was practically a fortress. I doubted even an unwanted rat could get into those cells, let alone a fat Unseelie gremlin.

As I rose from my kneel, I looked over at Carl and gave him a stern look. “You’d best watch out for them, kid,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “I trust you. Don’t let me down.”

Carl’s sour face lightened a little as he gave me a curt nod, placing his hands on his hips in an amusingly Rick-like fashion. “On it.”

I glanced down at the twins with a smile. “Okay, girls. The _Carlinator_ will watch out for you. Any problems, you go to him. He’ll use his Big Kid powers to help you, won’t you, _Carlinator_?”

He snorted something that sounded almost like a laugh, shaking his head. His head fell over his face as if he were purposefully trying to hide the smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

I gave the two of them another kiss on the tops of their grimy heads before gently pushing them towards the doors. Carl moved beside them, giving me a nod as if to say _I got this_ before he pulled open the door for them and followed the girls inside.

Rick waited patiently for a few seconds before coming to stand close beside me, looking at the door as if he could still see his son through it. “You’re good with him,” he breathed, following the remark with a deep sigh.

“Let me guess,” I began, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. “He did not like the idea of being “one of the kids”, hmm?”

Rick snorted as he shook his head. His hands were on his hips, much the same way Carl’s had been a moment ago, though he was standing close enough for his elbow to brush mine where it rested by my side.

I wondered if he did that on purpose. Touch me, I mean. He seemed to find excuses to do it a lot. Not that I minded, weirdly enough. In fact, the thought that he did it intentionally made something in my lower stomach tighten.

_Interesting_.

“Tried to do that thing you do where ya… I don’t know, give him purpose?” He chuckled ruefully. “Maybe it only works when it’s you who says it.”

I took in a deep breath and moved my arm slightly, so it was no longer touching his. A very subtle movement made whilst I was partially turning to face him. The lack of warmth from his touch was uncomfortably noticeable. “Figured he was pissed at me, considering it was him that ran off and snitched about my book club, wasn’t it?”

Rick’s posture straightened a little. He took a deep breath, using the expansion of his chest to excuse his slight turn of the torso. His elbow rested against my arm again.

He _was _doing it on purpose!

“How’d you know?” he asked. His voice was softer than usual, almost breathlessly in his exhaustion.

I guessed he’d already had a rather long day. “I didn’t, but cheers for the confirmation, Farmer Rick. Or is it back to Sheriff Rick now?”

“I haven’t got my hat,” he flippantly remarked, turning his head to look at me with a slight smirk. Those crystal blue eyes glinted in amusement.

I grinned back.

Alright, alright. I grinned back… _somewhat_ flirtatiously. I’ll admit it.

I mean, come on. He was a good-looking guy. I hadn’t had any intimate relations since _well _before the prison. And those eyes were gorgeous. What was a girl to do? I might have been a tough sonofabitch but I was still only… Well, not _human_, but you get the idea.

“Ah, I see. You tie your profession to your head wear. So, if I were to get you a sailor’s hat, that would make you…?”

“Captain Rick?” he responded with a grin. He’d turned his body to face me more now, meaning his arm was no longer touching mine, but the intimacy of the gesture was still very much there in his proximity.

“Mmm,” I agreed with a smirk. “I like a man with a title.”

Did I just say that out loud? By the Mother.

Rick’s brow rose as he regarded me, that grin turning into a coy smile that showed his near perfect teeth. “That so?”

I looked back towards the door, needing to be free of those damn eyes. And, considering the fact I could actually say it aloud without choking on the words, my remark was… well, apparently true. _The more you know_.

“Apparently, yeah,” I answered.

A somewhat pregnant silence followed. I glanced up to find Rick still regarding me with a curious look that shifted into a small smile when my gaze met his. Awkwardly, I took half a step back and turned to face him fully, putting a nice amount of distance between us. “I doubt you called me out here to chat about your professional options. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Rick sobered at that, letting out a breath through his nose, his gaze falling to the ground by his booted feet. “Karen.”

The name still sent a shock wave of anger and grief through me so violent; my body actually gave a shiver. “You’re _going _to look into it, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Of course I am.”

“Because the only reason I feel okay about going with Daryl today is because _you’re_ here.” I tilted my head slightly downward to catch his eye so he could see how serious I was about the subject. “You’re an intuitive guy, Rick. Use it. Don’t discount anyone. Even if it seems like something they’re not capable of, don’t dismiss them. People will surprise you with the things they have the stomach for when they believe they’re doing what’s right.”

His expression soured slightly, lips turning downward into a thoughtful frown. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I am,” I answered simply before realising that it was _maybe_ a somewhat suspicious thing to say.

Rick frowned deeper, brows furrowing as he opened his mouth to no doubt ask what I meant by that, but I beat him to it.

“You don’t think Phillip thought he was doing the right thing for a while there?” I asked. “Or that I thought I was doing the right thing by remaining loyal?”

Rick’s face lightened as he gave an understanding nod.

I almost blew out a sigh of relief.

_Nice save, le Jacques._

“Look, the person who did this… they thought they were protecting everyone else.” I breathed out a sigh through my nose. “It wasn’t done by someone as cold hearted as you’d think.”

Rick nodded in agreement. “The person who did this cares about the people.”

“But isn’t afraid to break the rules if they have to.”

He nodded again, chewing on his lower lip in an uncharacteristic show of uncertainty. It occurred to me that he was likely under a lot of pressure by multiple different parties to figure out the answers to these questions. Answers he knew he probably wouldn’t like. A shitty place to be, but someone had to be in it. Of everyone, I was glad it was him. I trusted he could find the one responsible.

I lifted a hand and rested it on his hard shoulder reassuringly, giving him a tight smile. “I believe in you, Ricky.”

He snorted a chuckle, turning his head to look at me again.

My hand slowly slid from his shoulder as my smile faded. “But you’d better find them before I get back.”

His soft expression hardened, brows furrowing in confusion at the sudden shift in my once playful tone.

I began to walk backwards towards the yard where Daryl and Michonne were gearing up the cars. “Not to put any more pressure on you, but if I’m the one that finds them, Rick…” I gave a hapless shrug. “I’ll kill ‘em.”

He stared steadily back at me, his lips in a taut line. It seemed as if he were torn between understanding and unease. The way I had spoken the words with such ease, yet such cold sincerity had caught him a little off guard.

I did not stick around to ease his mind.

#

When I got back to Daryl and Michonne, they were in the midst of a conversation about our groups dismal numbers. There were only four of us – with Bob having been the only one healthy enough to raise his hand – and for a job like this it was what I liked to call a “two-or-ten” scenario. You either did the sneaky two, or the strong ten. Anything in between was… usually just asking for a shit-show.

I heard more of their conversation whilst walking up to them than they probably knew, but Michonne reiterated it all to me anyway. When she first spotted me, a grin spread across her face and she remarked, “Of course, we all know Synnove’s a one-woman army.”

I slapped a hand against my chest and gave an over-dramatic, “_Aww_. Now, isn’t that the nicest thing anyone here’s ever said to me?”

“Only to your face,” Michonne shot back with a grin.

“And what a pleasant face it is,” I replied.

Daryl huffed something under his breath too low for even _me_ to hear as he slammed down the bonnet of the truck he’d been poking around in. “Got any ideas?” he asked, shifting the subject back to our abysmal group numbers.

“Anyone healthy enough to come?” I asked.

He shrugged one shoulder. His gaze was oddly intense, like he desperately wished for me to come up with something.

I pursed my lips in thought, running through a series names and faces, trying to remember who I’d seen in A Block during my brief stint dropping off Sasha. “Well… Bob.”

“Got him,” Michonne confirmed.

I paused, frowning. “Tyreese.”

Daryl grunted. “Man’s face was a punchin’ bag.”

“I’d still count on him to watch my back.” I looked between Michonne and Daryl. “Can _you _think of anyone else?”

There was a pause. Michonne and Daryl shared a look that I did _not _like.

“What?” I asked. “_Who_?” 

“There are… two others,” Michonne answered cautiously. She lifted her hands slowly, giving me a worried look.

“Okay. Now, I’m just concerned.” I looked at Daryl. He was gazing back at me with his brows drawn down in that adorable puppy-dog look he gave sometimes when either worried or sad. “Make that afraid,” I corrected, turning back to Michonne. “Now I think I’m afraid.”

“Look, he volunteered,” Michonne started. “We told him no at first, but… we need the numbers. He’s young but he’s strong and quick.”

“And not sick,” Daryl added.

My heart slowly sunk into my chest as the realisation hit me. “_Mason_?” Without meaning to, I felt my face contort into an angered snarl. “You want us to bring _Mason_? Hell no! He hasn’t even been exposed yet – I’m not taking that risk!”

“To be fair, it isn’t really your decision,” Michonne said softly.

I felt Daryl step closer to me from the side and whirled to look at him. “Tell me you didn’t suggest this.”

He gave me a shocked look, almost seeming hurt by the accusation. “’Course not.”

“I know you don’t like the kid.”

“Don’t mean I want him hurt.” He took a step back.

Of course, he didn’t. This was Daryl. Why was I leaping down his throat like this?

I took a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh. “Okay. I’m sorry. He volunteered. I know.” Stupid kid.

Daryl huffed through his nose and turned back to the car, pulling open the bonnet again and glaring into it. I knew he’d likely done everything in there he’d needed to do. He probably needed something to look at other than me right now.

“Who’s the other one?” I asked, looking back to Michonne with a frown.

“Look, I know you feel like you’re responsible for the kid, but… He’s his own person. And we need him.”

“I _know_,” I responded, doing my best not to let my anger overtake me. “I get it. Nothing I can do. Kid’s coming. Who’s the other one?” Because, honestly – I couldn’t think of anyone else that was equally stupid and healthy enough to volunteer to come along.

“The other… Uh… You know, I still have to go get those fuel cans.” Michonne started to back away from the cars.

Alarm bells immediately started ringing.

“Daryl? Why don’t you… You know… Explain. She’s less likely to hit _you_.”

Daryl stepped out from beneath the bonnet so fast, the thing slipped free of its stand and slammed back down with a metallic _clunk_. “Hey!”

But, Michonne was already halfway through the gate into the yard. She waved, mouthed something that looked like a “sorry” before turning around and making her way towards Watch Tower Three.

I eyed Daryl’s back, his stiff shoulders, until he slowly turned to face me.

“Please for the love of God tell me it’s not Hayden,” I said with a sigh. I somewhat doubted he’d volunteer, but his was the only name I’d come up with. He’d been in a part of D-Block but hadn’t been there the night of Patrick’s death. That night, he’d taken the night shift along the fence. With his ex-wife.

Daryl slowly shook his head as the horrifying knowledge began to dawn on me. He watched me with cautious eyes as my expression changed from one of realisation, to one of horror, to one of downright cold rage.

“_Claire_?” I asked slowly, sure to pronounce it clearly, lest I be mistaken. “Who… the fuck… invited… _Claire_?”

“I didn’t invite her,” Daryl said, voice hard. He stepped forward; one hand raised toward me. “She invited herself.”

“And you said, what? “_Sure, come along. What’s it matter that you’re a convicted criminal? You’re only guilty of trying to MURDER SYN! You know... MULTIPLE times!”_ Was that how the conversation went? It’s how I imagine that’s how the conversation went.”

His face began to tighten into a scowl. “We need the –“

“Need the numbers?” I finished for him, my tone implying I did not care. Even a little. “We need _trustworthy _numbers, Daryl. We don’t need seven. We don’t need the number that ate nine, okay? We need ten. Big, strong number. I’ll even take a five, you know. A jack of all trades, master of none type. I’m fine with that. But you can’t invite seven and expect me to be okay with it when _I’m the nine_!”

He blinked several times in response to that, gaze distant as if he were running through the entire spiel again to make sure he understood it correctly. I’ll admit, I’d said it someone fast and my accent probably obscured some of the words, but I felt as if my point was made clear enough. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her or anything. More that her insipid need to be right all the time made her a dangerous comrade.

“I do not like this,” I stated simply.

Daryl let out a sigh and completed his journey across the space between us until he was standing practically toe-to-toe with me. “I know, a’right? Ya think I do?”

I stared at him, chest rising and falling as I tried to get my breathing under control. My anger had taken quite the beating over the last few days and it was getting harder and harder to keep it restrained.

But, when Daryl lifted his hand and touched my upper arm, all that burning in my veins simmered down to a calm warmth. My shoulders relaxed and I let out a long sigh.

“I’ll watch ya back,” he said with a small smile.

My gaze snapped to meet his. “No, Daryl. Watch _hers_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day! I hope you're doing well!   
Thank you for tuning in to another update! This one was actually oddly fun to write. I enjoy writing Syn's small freak out speeches. Does that make me a sadist?
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoyed! As per usual, don't be shy! Leave a comment! I love hearing from all of you! :D
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always, 
> 
> FaerieHuntress xx


	33. A Sacrifice of Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group makes their way toward what may be their only hope to save the prison from the clutches of a horrid disease.

For a horrifying few moments, I was convinced Daryl was about to make me ride in the truck with Claire.

He was pissed at me, that much I knew, giving me that pouty frown of his every time our gazes met whilst we readied our group for the journey. I understood why. I’d hurt his feelings by insinuating he’d purposefully invited Mason along just to get the kid in trouble. Of course, I hadn’t really meant it. And I was pretty sure he knew that, but the fact I’d said it at all had really irked him.

I owed him an apology. I’d admit that. All that frustration, the grief I was biting back, the anger constantly simmering beneath my skin, had seeped through and I’d taken it out on him. Which had been equal parts and stupid. He was probably the only person that could quell this turmoil inside me.

God. What I wouldn’t give for a damn hug. Fuck, I’d even settle for an accidental hand grazing at this point. But, no. He was too pissed to even really look at me right now.

The only time I’d felt his gaze on me was when Mason arrived. The kid trailed behind Bob, who’d been sent to fetch him, looking nervous as hell as he approached. His eyes wouldn’t focus on anything, flickering from left to right, as if he were too afraid to lock eyes with anyone.

I stayed where I was, leant against the slim black sedan that had once belonged to Zach – “spiritually, at least”, as he’d say – and stared at the kid until he slipped up and caught my gaze.

Everything I wanted to say was written plain as day across my face.

One brow raised, lips pulled in a tight line, I pushed off the car and took a few steps towards him. Mason’s shoulders tightened and he stuttered to a stop, head tilted downward, his nervous air shifting to one of regret.

He had that kind of look one often got when they knew they were about to be Lectured by an authority figure.

“What in the name of holy fuck are you thinking, kid?” I hissed at him.

Bob, still walking up beside him, took in a sharp breath before clearing his throat and awkwardly pointing toward where Michonne was approaching, carrying a pair of jerry cans. “I’m, uh… I’m gonna go help her. Carry the… Yep.”

I waited until he had scampered off out of ear shot to continue. “You hadn’t been exposed, you moron. Why would you risk it?”

Mason chewed his lower lip and glanced down at his boots with a slight frown. “People are dying.”

“And what, you didn’t think the list was long enough, so you thought to add to it?” I took a step closer to him, tilting my head whilst I regarded him with a narrowed gaze. “The point is to _avoid_ the dying part, not barrel towards it.”

At that, Mason’s head snapped back up, a muscle in his gaunt twitching as he clenched his teeth. “Coming from you.”

I snorted. “I’m a unique story, kid.”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a nod, though the sudden hardness to his expression didn’t fade. “But I have as much of a right to risk my life as you do. These people took me in. If there’s something I can do to help them, I’m going to do it. Know why? Because you would.” He thrust a hand forward to point at me. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am. I’m a survivor. And I can fight!” A pause. “Well, kinda. You taught me shit, right? I remember it. And I can shoot! I can _definitely_ shoot, right? You know I can. And I will. Point me anywhere, I’ll shoot anything, I’ll even –“

I lifted up my hands in a surrender motion, biting back a little grin. “Alright, Ned Kelly. Damn. Calm down. I get it.”

Mason lowered himself back down into his usual, slight slouch and awkwardly cleared his throat before taking a slight step back. His animated speech had cost him some social battery, apparently, as it was clear he’d retreated into himself somewhat. Those soft eyes of his glanced nervously around at the others standing nearby, as if he were concerned they’d overheard him, lingering for a brief moment on Daryl, where he stood by the second car, watching us from beneath the bonnet.

“You want to help?” I asked, taking a deep breath and sighing as I shrugged. “It’s your decision. Not mine.”

Mason nodded once, sternly. “Yes. Exactly. That… that was my point.”

I lifted a hand and slapped it against his thin shoulder, letting it linger there for a moment before stepping past him, back toward the rest of the group.

Ophelia appeared a few moments later, hands clutching her precious M16 as she marched across the quad towards us. Behind her, trailing behind, was Claire. She looked like a child in comparison to Phee’s tall, muscled physique, petulantly stomping along like a fifth grader that didn’t want to do her chores. Her once pristinely combed hair was a birds nest atop her head, hastily tied back with an elastic band. Dark circles hung beneath her bright eyes and the hollows of her cheeks were shadowed, made all the more stark in contrast to her pale skin.

Her gaze was fixed ahead of her as she walked with that self-important, nose-to-sky strut she was so fond of doing.

I stood beside Michonne, leaning against the side of the sedan. Daryl was still fiddling with something beneath the hood whilst Bob stood behind him, making idle conversation. Tyreese had gone to say goodbye to his ill sister and Mason hovered awkwardly beside me, near the trunk of the car.

The tension in the air suddenly became thick enough to be considered a physical sensation as Claire came within murdering distance of me.

Everyone stiffened, Bob paused mid-sentence, and Michonne’s hand twitched slightly as if preparing to grab my arm in case I launched myself forward. Phee made sure to occupy the space between Claire and I. Though she was an opposing and intimidating woman, I’d admit, the pointed look she gave me as she squared her coiled shoulders had little effect.

Slowly, as if drawn toward me by some unseen force within her, Claire’s gaze lifted to meet mine. That burning hatred I’d grown so used to was absent, replaced by a cautious curiosity as she gave me a slow once over. It had been a fair few weeks since we’d last really seen each other in a personal capacity. Her work on the fence kept her rather busy. She sometimes was escorted to attend my book club “story-time” but, other than that, we’d had no interaction for months.

Maybe she’d finally realised I wasn’t the monster she’d been so desperate to believe I was?

Okay. Doubtful. But it was nice not to see that seething hatred in her gaze for once. Perhaps I had overreacted a little when Daryl had told me she’d be joining us.

I waited a moment longer than I probably needed to. The sheer stiffness of the air around everyone as they glanced between the pale woman and I was… actually kind of amusing. They were acting like we were wild animals they had just released into a cage together, waiting for one of us to attack the other.

After I had well and truly soaked up the moment, I flashed Claire a grin. “Clairy-fairy.”

_Annnnd_ the hatred returned. Burning deep into the depths of her gaze as she stared back at me.

“Murderer,” she greeted.

I gave a mock sniffle, lifting a hand to wipe away a non-existent tear. “Just like the old times.”

She snorted what almost sounded like a chuckle. “I hope not. The last thing the people need is you checking another one of us off your list.”

_Don’t rise to it. Don’t acknowledge it. Just keep moving. Let it go. You’re better than this_.

My brows raised in a look of mock surprise. “Oh? I have a list now, do I? My, my. What an organised little psychopath I am.”

I playfully nudged Michonne, who lifted a hand as if to say, “don’t bring me into this”.

Before Claire could come up with a witty and biting response to that, Daryl rather forcefully slammed the bonnet of the car shut, making a few of us jump. He stepped out from the front of the sedan and looked at each of us in turn.

“Who wants to drive the truck?” he asked the group.

The fact he had waited to ask this until everyone but Tyreese was here wasn’t lost on me.

“I’ll drive,” Phee volunteered.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“’right. Who’s ridin’ with you?”

Obviously, Ophelia jerked her head toward Claire. It had been her job to watch her since we’d put the woman on the fence, a position Phee took quite seriously.

I thought that was it until Daryl took another step forward, so he was standing parallel with Michonne, and said, “You gotta take one more.”

“Be a squeeze fitting three people in that truck,” Phee remarked, brows furrowing as she looked down at Daryl.

“Not if they’re small enough,” he responded with a shrug before gesturing lazily in my direction. “One of them’ll fit.”

I felt my jaw drop open as I turned my head to look at him, eyes wide in genuine surprise. The guy was angry at me – fair enough – but it couldn’t be that angry at me, could he? To condemn me to a six-hour car ride with Claire? The woman who had tried to kill me, who had conspired to ruin my reputation, who had manipulated two men into attacking me so I would _kill them_?

A feeling of dread began to creep up my throat, lodging in there like a sickening lump as the realisation that I may had really fucked things up with the one person I cared about most began to dawn.

When Daryl glanced toward me, his eyes widened slightly when he saw the look on my face. “I – I meant th-the kid… or Michonne.”

Relief washed over me so completely, it made me lightheaded. I had to lean back against the sedan again to keep my balance. Jesus Christ.

In the end, Mason volunteered to ride with the two women.

As Daryl climbed into the driver’s seat of the black sedan, I pulled open the passenger side door, more out of habit than anything, and slid inside. When I closed the door behind me and settled into the seat, I stared out the front window, feeling the air in the car shift. The other three hadn’t climbed in yet. It was only Daryl and I in there for a brief few moments.

I leapt on my chance.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

Daryl took a deep breath through his nose.

“I didn’t mean to imply… I mean, you know I wouldn’t really believe you’d do that, right?”

His hands lifted from where they’d been resting in his lap, gripping the steering wheel as he stared blankly out the front window. “Seemed pretty convinced.”

I let out a sharp breath. “I was just mad, okay? It wasn’t you. I just…”

Daryl pushed against the steering wheel, pushing himself back into the drivers seat so hard it actually let out a groan. “I know.” A long sigh escaped him as he eased up, returning to his usual position and turning his head to look at me. “I know.”

His voice softened and he let out a soft, breathless chuckle, shaking his head.

“_Damn_. I can’t stay mad at you.”

A beaming smile lit up my face before I’d even really registered his words. “You’re not mad?”

He looked back at me, smiled ruefully. “No. I ain’t.”

The urge to hug him was so strong I almost launched myself across the car. Thankfully, before I could, Michonne opened the back door behind me and peered in.

“We ready?”

For some reason, it almost felt as if she’d waited until Daryl and I had sorted out our issues before poking her head in. Like she’d known.

Daryl nodded at her. She relayed the message to the others before slipping in, claiming the middle seat.

It was almost comical watching her face grow more and more irritated as Bob slid in one side and Tyreese slid in the other, effectively squishing her between them.

“Ah, the perfect road trip snack,” I remarked, glancing at Daryl with a barely suppressed grin. “A Michonne sandwich.”

Daryl snorted a laugh as he turned the key in the ignition.

#

It’s funny how you never really know if you truly mesh with someone until you are stuck in a car with them for three hours.

Example.

When Michonne made a remark on Daryl’s terrible taste in music, she, Daryl, and myself began a round of banter that flowed as fluently as a river into the sea. After silence settled again, the air in the car was light and the silence comfortable.

When Bob said something about noticing my pointed ears for the first time after I tied up my hair, and I made a witty remark about being a _Lord of the Rings_ fan, and he responded with “never liked those films”, the car settled into an awkward quiet that lasted for almost five full minutes before I made the decision to turn on the radio.

Which, of course, started a whole manner of other issues. Tyreese didn’t like country music, Bob couldn’t stand anything pop or hip-hop, Michonne was not a fan of metal, Daryl wanted to avoid anything slow that might make him drowsy, and I didn’t have any access to my usual Aussie classics, so… We settled on an old jazz album buried at the back of our CD case.

It didn’t last.

After about an hour into the CD, and three into the trip, Bob gently requested we switch to something else. Daryl turned the tune off mid-trumpet solo, much to Michonne and I’s dismay. However, the moment the music stopped, something… strange happened.

A voice sounded through the radio.

An actual fucking voice. A fucking human (I think) voice!

We had long since given up on radio communications. Our radio had suffered a horrible, sparky death relatively recently, but even before then the only person dedicated enough to it was Craig. Many people were of the mind that any important messages from the government would have been heard by now. More still believed that strangers would be nothing but trouble.

“Shh,” Michonne hushed. “Do you hear that?”

Daryl leant forward in his seat slightly, twisting the nob on the radio.

“… _to find sanctuary_… _determined to survive_… _keep alive_…”

It was a man’s voice, struggling to come through clearly on the air. The tone implied it was perhaps pre-recorded, or at least a message this individual had given a multitude of times before. Practised, confident. His voice was clear, despite static interference.

It wasn’t a call for help. It was an invitation.

From those eight words alone, I could deduce a lot about the environment the speaker was in. It was all speculation, of course, but thanks to my background, we could call it a series of educated guesses.

The man – we’ll call him… Maximus Augustus Reginald Kassius III… or “M.A.R.K” for short – sounded comfortable. As if he were in a place that felt almost as a home to him. I could loosely surmise that there was a collection of people around him, too. A community, like what we had at the prison. One that M.A.R.K seemingly wanted to grow.

However, something about that voice, as clear and precise as it was, set my nerves on edge. I couldn’t quite place it but there was almost… an underlying sense of tension beneath the sound.

Given a chance, I likely could have gained much more information from the message. We all could have.

Daryl had been focusing on the radio, turning the tuner to try and focus in on the signal, when a walker stepped out into the road in front of us. Noticing it at the last minute, he instinctively swerved, sending the car fish-tailing down the road as he struggled to regain control. Behind us, the truck did the same as Phee tried to avoid colliding with our back end.

I gripped onto the bar above my window to steady myself until we skidded to a stop a good few metres down the road. The truck came to an unsteady halt about a millimetre away from our back end.

Our screeching tyres must have drawn every walker within the vicinity from the shadows of the forests as, after barely a moment of pause, our car was suddenly surrounded.

“Grab somethin’!” Daryl yelled, reaching down by the wheel well beside my legs to grab his crossbow.

I pulled a pair of short knives from my boots and prepared to open the door as a pair of walkers began to press up against the window.

Daryl and I shared a glance. You couldn’t even see the roadside through his window – there was a river of walkers outside it. I jerked my head up toward the skylight and he gave me a solemn nod.

Glancing back at the other three, I said in a clear voice, “Run for the tree line and don’t stop.”

And, with that, I pulled open my door and kicked it with enough brute force to shatter the window, pushing the pair of walkers back. They stumbled into another behind them, giving me enough time to slip free of the car. I slashed a nearby walker as it encroached on Tyreese’s door. Not that I really should have worried. That man burst out of the car like it was on _fire_. Wielding a hatchet, he flew from his seat, hacking and slashing and yelling as he took out walker after walker with such vigour, I was actually momentarily impressed. Until the sounds of his near crazed grunts started to attracts more walkers. And more. And more.

I leapt into action, reaching out to grab the arm of one walker and sling-shotting it into another before spinning my knives around in my palms and stabbing them both into their heads. Kicking their bodies before they fell, I used the momentum of their fall to push my way through a small group, coming out on the other side by Tyreese. As he hacked, I slashed and stabbed, keeping the seemingly ever-growing horde of walkers growing around him back as much as I could.

Behind us, I could hear Michonne swinging her blade and Daryl grunting as he waded his way through, knife at the ready.

Phee was going nuts with her two axes, carving a path for both Mason and Claire to slink through.

Years of battle-instincts saved me, forcing my body to spin around and lift my knives as Tyreese’s hatchet came swinging down toward me. He must have mistaken me for a walker because the moment he registered the blade of his axe was now caught between my two knives, he blinked in surprised and met my gaze.

“Go!” he yelled, pulling his axe free.

A walker beside me was blindsided by a green-tipped arrow.

“I’m not leaving you behind!” I yelled back, turning in place to stab a walker, using my other knife to slash through another’s temple. The cut wasn’t deep enough to kill it, but the force of the blow stumbled it sideways, into another walker, giving me another fraction of a moment to look at Tyreese. “Karen would haunt my ass if I let you die here!”

Tyreese’s wide gaze fixed on me as he swing his hatchet down over my shoulder, slicing into the skull of a walker behind me. “I said _go_!”

I opened my mouth to argue once again, but my arm was suddenly grabbed by a warm hand, yanking me to the side. Daryl ran through the small horde, having snatched me as he passed, and began to drag me toward the tree line, where I could see Phee and Mason keeping the path clear for us.

“Hey!” I yelled in protest, twisting my body around so I wouldn’t be dragged off my feet by Daryl. “We can’t leave –“

“I ain’t losin’ you like that,” he snapped over his shoulder, giving me another violent tug as he ducked beneath a walker’s reach. “All ya’ll, keep movin’!”

I stabbed it as I was dragged past.

We kept running for a few minutes, further into the forest until the wave of walkers grew thinner and we comfortably slowed to a jog, and then stopped altogether. Daryl’s hand was still wrapped tightly around my upper arm, as if he were afraid I’d _still_ double back, despite the fact I knew there was no point now. I’d figured that out a good few minutes ago, when I’d heard the hard footsteps against the loose forest floor a few dozen paces behind us.

Tyreese was fine.

Well… Fine enough. He’d made it through that clusterfuck, anyhow.

“What the hell… do we do… now?” Mason asked between panted breaths.

I squared my shoulders as I slowly controlled by breathing, turning my head to watch the beaten path behind us, listening as those thunderous footsteps grew louder. “We wait.”

Everyone looked at me in confusion.

Daryl’s hand slipped free of my arm as he turned in place, looking toward the thicket we had burst through moments earlier as a large form stumbled into our clearing.

Claire let out a gasp of surprise which was almost drowned out by Mason’s shocked, “well, shit”.

Tyreese’s exhausted form lumbered forwards, his dark skin shimmering with the remnants of walker blood and sweat. His shoulders rose and fall rapidly, the grip on his hatchet tight enough to turn his knuckles a concerning shade.

From where I stood, I couldn’t see any bites or scratches, so I gave the man a nod and turned back toward the direction we had been heading in. “And now we walk.”

#

It would have been cruel to go much further, given how exhausted Tyreese was, so as soon as the sun began to set, we all decided to find a place to lay our heads for the night.

We had been closer to the vet school than we were to the prison, so it made more sense for us to keep walking in the direction of our destination instead of turning back. Another car would likely make itself useful further down the road, but for now, we were confined to the edges of the forest, under the cover of its shadow.

There was a nice little area by the roadside, partly down a slight incline, that we utilised. It was partially encased by a pair of fallen trees, their long trunks blocking off access to our campsite from both the deeper forest and the way we’d come. We put together a hasty watch schedule with Daryl taking first watch and Mason volunteering to take over halfway through the night.

For once, I was given the opportunity to actually sleep for a whole night. _Imagine that_.

Of course, my seething anger made it a little difficult to get some shut eye.

_Guess who made me angry. Go on. Guess_.

Fucking Claire.

From the moment we chose to begin walking towards the vet school, she began to complain. First, it was because she’d left her weapon in the truck – a move made due to her own cowardly stupidity. Then, it was because she hadn’t worn the right jeans for hiking, and then it was her shoes hurting her feet, and then it was the sun in her eyes.

Honestly. She probably thought God himself was against her, too.

I wanted to punch her every time she opened her goddamn mouth.

Daryl would have to reach out and touch my arm every so often to make sure I wasn’t about to lose it, even though I could tell by the look on his face that he was growing just as irritated. Tyreese was too tired to really react to anything whilst Michonne kept making murmured remarks about how no one back home would know if we just left her behind.

Even Bob seemed to be getting tired of her constant complaints and he had to be the most mellow dude out of all of us.

Somehow, I managed to hold myself back from even making a joke about her bullshit, mostly thanks to Michonne’s amusing remarks and the warmth of Daryl’s proximity, but Mason also deserves a shout out. A good three hours into the walk, the brave boy sacrificed himself for our sanity and struck up a conversation with her. Something about morals in politics. I tuned out the moment she began debating with the kid about her right to make biased decisions in the senate.

It was honestly a wonder she had survived long enough to even _see _the apocalypse.

When we finally chose our little spot to camp for the night, Claire’s voice became unbearably exigent. She was aghast at the idea of sleeping on the forest floor, acting as if she hadn’t just spent the last three or four months lying on an old, thin mattress in a cell, in a dank, dirty prison.

“But what about bugs?” she demanded, looking between all of us as if we were somehow the ones acting strange.

I tapped my chin. “Perhaps you’re onto something, there, Claire. Bugs _are _attracted to the smell of shit.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “You’re such a child.”

“Perspective is a funny thing. To the mouse, the cat is a giant.”

“Did you just call me old?” Claire asked, raising a thin brow.

I gave her a smug little grin, dipping my head slightly. “As I said, everything is matter of perspective.”

Mason snorted, slapped a hand over his mouth, and looked down at the floor.

“See? You entertain children. And only children.”

Michonne lifted her hand. “I found it kind of funny.”

I winked at her and she gave me a cheeky grin in return.

“You’re _all_ acting like children,” Tyreese huffed a moment later. “Can we just agree on it and go to damn sleep already?”

Everyone agreed. Except Claire, who complained for another few moments before I well and truly lost my shit and struck her over the side of the head with the hilt of my knife. Phee caught her before she hit the ground, not looking even the slightest bit surprised as she lowered her down to the ground. No one commented on it, except Bob, who just nodded with a, “Fair enough.”

We all settled ourselves in for the night under Daryl’s watchful eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo!   
I hope you're all well! Thank you for tuning in to another update. I really hope you enjoyed it! As usually, don't be shy about leaving a comment :D
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	34. In These Dark Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stranded in the middle of nowhere, the rag-tag group camp for the night, whilst something hunts nearby in the shadows.

My eyes snapped open.

The rustling was coming from somewhere to my right, small footsteps against loose leaves. Slowly, silently, I lifted myself into a partial sitting position. The fire was naught more than smoking coals, but even without the light from the flames, I could still dimly see the sleeping bodies of my comrades. Daryl was closest, lying on his side, facing me, head resting against his arm. He must have taken his place when Mason swapped watch shifts with him.

Michonne was on the opposite side of me, lying flat on her back, both hands behind her head as she softly snored. Her sword was resting against the trunk of a tree behind her.

Bob was lying, partially propped up against a tree near the curve of the roadside.

Claire was still passed out beside Phee, curled into a ball with her mouth hung open wide. I wondered for a moment how many bugs had crawled into her mouth by now until the mental image of it started to make me feel nauseous.

“You okay?” came a voice from my left.

Mason sat on the fallen log, back resting against the long roots reaching up into the sky at its base. The light of the moon cast shadows against his young face, making his features seem almost fae-like in the darkness.

“You hear anything?” I whispered back, pulling myself up fully into a sitting position.

Mason’s eyes glinted as he shook his head. “Nothin’ weird.”

My head jerked slightly to the side as I stared off into the shadows behind him, following that sound. Rustling. Maybe it was just an animal and I was too tired to think straight, but something within was vibrating with urgency. I pushed myself up onto my feet and silently made my way over to the log Mason was sitting on.

He watched me with curious eyes as I stepped over it and lowered myself down beside him, back facing the camp.

“What is it? Spider-sense tinglin’ again?” he asked with a grin.

I gave him a small smirk of amusement, glancing his way momentarily before turning my gaze back to the darkness of the woods before us.

The forest at night was always beautiful to behold for someone like me, who saw deeper into shadows than most. It was hard to discern with the mortal gaze the way the moonlight trickled in thin streams through the minuscule gaps in the branches above. Like tiny lines of starlight, illuminating only small sections at a time until what lay before you was the illusion of an otherworldly forest. But focus on those thin lights and the shadows between became all the darker, an almost depthless black that hid every nasty thing I knew lurked among us.

“I meant to ask…” Mason began, spinning in place until he, too, was facing away from the camp. “What’s with that?”

I snorted. “You know, you’re the only one to actually ask me that lately.”

Mason’s brows furrowed. “Really?”

“Yep,” I answered with a nod. "Everyone else just seems to kind of... avoid it."

Silence settled for a long moment until Mason realised I did not intend on elaborating any further without another push. He shuffled back on the log a little, turning in place to face me.

“You have, like… super hearing. And you’re weirdly fast.” He crossed his legs, resting his arms against his thighs as he leant forwards, his voice growing even lower. “And _strong_. Like, I might’ve been a little outta it when the roof collapsed back at the store, but I remember you dragging me out. It was like I weighted nothing to you.”

“You are skin-and-bone, kid,” I remarked, giving him another sidelong look.

“You know what I mean.”

I could feel his intense gaze on the side of my face as I stared out into the darkness. That rustling was still there in the distance, growing slightly closer. It had been joined now by another sound, a familiar one, further off in the depths of the forest. A walker, shuffling along, gurgling nonsense deep in its throat.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I know what you mean.”

“So…” Mason prodded, shuffling closer to me.

I did not respond.

“Does _Daryl_ know?”

My gaze snapped to his, brow cocked. “Why do you ask?”

Mason shrugged, shoulders pulling inwards as if my hard tone made him a little self-conscious. “I just… I mean, you know…”

“Know what?” I asked.

“You and Daryl… You’re like…” He blew out a sigh. “A-thing-but-not.”

I gave him a very long blink, shaking my head in confusion. “_What_?”

“I’m not the only one that thinks it.” Mason lifted his hands in a defensive motion. “It’s like you’re… I don’t know. A package deal, I guess. Everyone knows not to mess with you because of him. And not to mess with him because of you.”

I opened my mouth to argue but found that there was… very little I could have actually said to rebuke that particular statement. He had a point. Daryl and I _were_ practically inseparable. Even when we were arguing. But he made it sound like… “We’re not _together_.”

Mason nodded, averting his gaze. “Oh, I know.”

The way he flippantly said that made it sound as if he… thought otherwise.

I almost wished we’d go back to talking about my supernatural weirdness. It was an easier subject. “Kid, you’ve got a lot to learn about – “

A piercing sound broke through the silent forest. It was loud enough for even Mason to turn his head toward; a kind of screech, followed by a series of skittering footfalls against the undergrowth, a thud, and then an unnerving silence.

“Hell was that?” Mason asked in a shaken whisper. “Some kind of mountain lion?”

I listened carefully to the sounds of the forest, my heart sinking further as I noticed the absence of the crickets. Even the walker had gone silent.

“No,” I answered slowly. “Not a mountain lion.”

Rising from my seat, I stepped forwards into the darkness of the forest. Mason got up, too, but I threw a hand back, indicating for him to stay. He stuttered to a stop behind me.

“Keep watch,” I whispered. “_Don’t_ follow.”

#

I should have known the kid wouldn’t listen.

His uneven footfalls almost echoed through entire forest with how loud they were. That, and the damn torch he’d brought along ruined any and all semblance of stealth I’d been trying to step with.

I waited for him behind a tree.

A little mean? Maybe. But the kid needed to learn a lesson one way or another.

When he stepped past my hiding spot, I leapt out, clapping one hand over his mouth and grabbing the torch with the other. He let out a muted scream as I pulled him back toward the trunk I’d been pressed against.

“Shut up,” I hissed in his ear. “It’s just me.”

His body practically slumped against me in relief.

I let him go, yanking the torch from him and switching it off.

“_Hey_.”

“Shh!”

“_Now I can’t see_.”

“_Want to make it permanent_?”

“_N-no_.”

“_Then shut up_.”

He thankfully did after that, sinking back against the tree with a pout. His eyes had that unfocused look most people got when they were in sheer darkness.

The sound I had been following since stepping into the shadows started again, off to the left of where we now stood. It was almost like a wet crunch, something similar to what it sounded like when a walker was chowing down on a fresh kill. Except… it was accompanied by gasping breaths.

Walkers didn’t breathe.

And they certainly didn’t smell like damn frozen sulfur. Which, in case you didn’t know, smells different to regular sulfur. I don’t know how to explain it. Kind of… minty, in a weird way.

That smell sent a cold rush of fear down my spine. For a moment, all I could do was freeze, nothing but ice coursing through my veins as an inexplicable sense of terror filled me. It was so strong I clenched my fists tight enough to mangle the flashlight, still clutched in my hand. The crunch of the metal casing snapped me out of my frozen shock, and I blinked hard.

What the hell had _that_ been? Why was I suddenly so afraid?

Mason let out a small whimper. “_What was that_?”

I glanced down at my hand, at the concave bend where my fingers had been. Thankfully it was a solar-powered flashlight, otherwise my hand would likely be covered in battery acid right now and I wouldn’t have been able to flippantly dismiss it with a “_How should I know?_” whilst tossing the mangled thing over my shoulder.

That sound again. God, it was gross. Like someone was slurping up Mac ‘N’ Cheese.

I took a few steps closer, my feet almost silent against the underbrush. Mason stumbled forwards until he had a firm grip on the material at the back of my shirt. His steps were louder than mine but, to give him credit, softer than they had been before. That tenseness in the air had finally registered with his brain. I could feel him quivering behind me as I pressed up against another tree, slowly moving to peer around it at the origin of the gross sounds.

What I saw made me almost piss myself.

I pulled back behind the trunk so fast, the back of my head struck Mason’s forehead and he let out a curt grunt of pain, lifting a hand to grab the bridge of his nose.

The sounds stopped.

Seconds ticked by like hours. We waited, frozen, until those sounds resumed.

“_What is it_?” Mason asked, confused and no doubt scared by my reaction. “_A walker_?”

No. Nope. That was _not _a walker.

It _was _a creature that ate human flesh, dead or alive. But that was about where the similarities ended. The thing was small, maybe hip-height on my five-seven frame, but it was much longer than it was wide. It almost looked like what you’d picture when you thought “gnome” or “dwarf”, minus the beard, and stretched out like taffy. The whole thing was unnervingly disproportionate, with its spindly arms almost longer than both its bony torso and its thin legs.

I’d only had a brief look at the thing but my God did the image of its face burn into my mind like a psychological brand.

Again, it looked almost like those cliché depictions of a garden gnome, only elongated. Its face was thin with a short angular nose at its centre and a sharp jawline that ended in an almost comically pointed chin. At least, it looked pointed. It was hard to tell with all the blood covering its face.

What I _could_ tell was that it didn’t really have a mouth. It was more like its face split open where a mouth _would _be. And I mean, like… _split_ open. Like the upper half of its face was a completely separate body part to its jaw, held together by two long strips of flesh on either side that somewhat resembled the webbing between your forefinger and thumb.

Within that gaping maw of a hole in its face were teeth. Lots and lots of jagged, pointy, sharp, unfriendly looking teeth. There had to be like… six _rows_ of ‘em, disappearing down the blackness of its throat.

My hand clutched at my chest as I began to hyperventilate. The fear coursing through me was met by equal parts confusion, which only made the whole panic-attack thing _worse_. Why was I so afraid of this thing? I mean, yeah, it looked like someone’s sleep paralysis demon had decided to go on a walkabout, but… I was pretty sure I knew what it was. And I was also pretty sure me and my numerous knives could take it. Not to mention the nine-millimetre holstered at my back. But I couldn’t seem to convince my body of that as it continued to shudder and shake.

Mason placed a hand on my shoulder, leaning in close to me in the darkness. “_Hey_. _It’s okay. It’s okay, breathe. Just breathe._”

I tried to listen to his advice. Really, I did. But my heart was thundering in my chest so violently I honestly felt like I was about to puke it out and I could only think two conscious things.

One, what in the ever-loving _fuck_ was going on with me right now?

And two – weirdly – was… _where’s Daryl_?

I try very hard not to judge myself for that one when I think back on this whole ordeal.

As if he were perfectly in sync with my traitorous thoughts, Mason grabbed my hands and placed them both gently on the trunk of the tree before beginning to back away. “_You stay right here. I’m going to go get Daryl. Okay?_”

_Um, no. Not okay. Do not leave me here_. _And for the love of God do not bring Daryl into this_.

I reached out and snatched Mason’s hand before he could get too far. There was no way I was going to let Daryl see this. It was bad enough Mason almost had.

I mean, really. How was I going to talk my way out of this one? I didn’t want poor, sweet, innocent Mason knowing about the true horrors that lurked in the darkness of this world. I’d seen what that could do to a person. The paranoia, the fear…

“_Stay_,” I breathed. “_Stay… right… here_.”

I pulled him back towards the tree, pushing him gently against the trunk with one hand whilst I shakily drew one of my knives with the other.

“_Do not... Look… Behind this tree… No matter what… you hear…_” I tapped his chest with my hand firmly enough, so he’d understand the urgency behind my request. “_Got it_?”

He shook his head. “_What are you gonna do_?”

I took a deep breath – as deep a breath as my shuddering body would allow. “_I’m gonna… _deal_ with it. Alright, kid_? _It isn’t something_… _you need to see_…”

Because once you saw… We knew. The fae would always know you had Seen and you’d _always_ be a target.

It was already rather clear the poor guy really did _not_ want to see what was making those slurping, crunching noises – an instinctual human fear that was working in my favour. Despite the fact I could tell he wanted to help, he nodded his understanding and pressed back against the thick trunk.

It took me another moment to get my breathing under control before I stepped out from our hiding place. My feet pressed silently against the undergrowth.

The first thing I saw was the top of the creature’s head. It wore a long, floppy pointed cap type hat that glistened in the dim moonlight streaming in through the branches above, a stark crimson red. The next thing I noticed was its hands. They were digging into the rib cage of a walker, the one I’d likely heard earlier, which it now couched on top of. Each time those hands came back out, they were clutching rotted organs and flesh that were quickly deposited into that wide maw, which would then crunch and chew and slurp until it swallowed.

I fought back the urge to puke.

My stomach was made of damn steel, mind you. I had seen a _lot _of shit in my life. But this… This was fucking _gross_.

I stalked closer, clutching my knife tightly in my still shaking hands. This thing, this creature; it was a Redcap. Another Unseelie bastard, hanging around much too close to home.

There must have been a Pathway somewhere nearby, a Door to the Fae World, _Niverin_. Specifically, to the Unseelie realm of _Tir Na nOg_. It was the only way to explain away the fact that I had seen both a glasithinn _and_ a redcap in such a short amount of time.

I mean, I knew these creatures were known to frequently be brought over when their Masters – the Winter Sidhe – were exiled. It was why you’d often find a whole clan of the fuckers in the big cities. The exiled Unseelie Sidhe were usually of a…. particular sort. They were often arrogant and entitled assholes, who believed they deserved to live a life of luxury simply because they’d gone to the strenuous effort of being _born_. Especially the ones who’d gone to the _extra _effort of being born into a noble family.

They’d drag their servants into exile along with them and in doing so curse the land to be forever infested with those fucking little fiends.

I had, thankfully, never run into one of the bastards face-to-face. But, I’d heard stories – none of them pleasant.

Like the glasithinn, they fed on flesh.

_Unlike_ the glasithinn, they were vicious little shits. The flesh they fed on could be human, fae, animal, walker… Really, it didn’t matter. They weren’t picky eaters. And, half the time they would kill more for fun than for food, making a damn _mess_ in the process.

“Redcaps” were called so after the crimson headwear they all wore. It was apparently custom for a newborn redcap – called a whitecap – to be gifted a homemade hat upon its birth. This was usually made by its mother who would weave together bone powder and cotton, giving it its white colour. By the age of five, if that hat had even a _speck _of white left on it, that little redcap kid was disowned by its family. Usually brutally murdered, too.

But how was it meant to _make_ its cap red, you ask?

By showering itself in the gore of its victims.

I only tell the _fun _stories, don’t I?

From what I could tell of the creature in front of me, he must have been a favourite son of the family. That damn cap was _shimmering _the blood on it was so fresh. I wanted to attribute that to the gore from the walker beneath him that he was both eating and throwing up into the air above him like confetti rain, but that walker had been dead quite a while. Its blood was dark and thin, with that kind of watery quality that came with decomposition. No. It had killed something else, something fresher. Recently, too. Which probably meant the little bloodthirsty thing was all hyped up on adrenaline and ready to kill anything it laid its all-too-humanoid eyes on.

I had to get it first.

It was too close to our camp. Too close to _Mason_.

God, that thing would tare him apart like wrapping paper with those retractable, needle-like claws.

I was getting close to it, stalking across the forest floor with wispy steps, so fluid they were almost completely silent. It didn’t even notice me.

_Daryl’d be proud_.

Something snapped behind me. A twig, from by the tree I’d left Mason pressed up against. I froze mid-step as the redcap’s head jerked upwards, its hands pausing halfway to its mouth. Wet, dark viscera dripped from between its thin fingers, slopping back down into the walker’s chest cavity with a sickening sound as it turned its head from side to side.

Those ears, long and pointed – _much_ longer than my own – poked out beneath either side of its cap, through the purpose-made holes. They almost seemed to twitch as they listened, searching, waiting for another sound.

It took all my will power to keep my breaths slow and quiet, to stay perfectly still two feet away from this little ball of teeth and claws. The thing straightened its back and lowered its hands, allowing the gore to spill back into the walker’s open chest.

_Don’t fucking move, kid. Do not. Fucking. Move._

Unfortunately, telekinesis was _not_ an ability I possessed. Mason, who had obviously made a move to step out from behind the tree and stepped on a damn stick, did the stupidest thing possible – you know, after _ignoring_ my sound advice. He _took his foot off it_.

It was a slight sound, I’ll admit, but with everyone – and thing – on such high alert, it practically echoed through the silent forest.

The redcap spun in place, humanoid eyes with glowing yellow irises fixating on me, where I stood no more than two feet away, arm raised, clutching a knife.

I breathed out a nervous chuckle and tried for a reassuring smile. “Heh. Hey there… buddy.”

It tilted its head, arms held to its chest, hands bent downwards, long claws dripping blood down onto its little booted feet. A guttural sound rumbled deep in its throat.

“_Lovely night_, _isn’t it_?” I said in fae, my strained voice somewhat obscuring the words.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected that to work, so why I was startled when the redcap launched itself at me is anyone’s guess. Still, I let out a little squeak as the creature’s shadowed form collided with my chest.

The force of it knocked me backwards and I crashed to the forest floor, somehow managing to catch one of the redcap’s hands with my knife before it could piece through the flesh of my shoulder. My other shoulder wasn’t as lucky. The creature’s needle-like claws dug into the joint between my upper arm and collarbone and I bit back a cry of pain, knowing any sound was likely to wake the others and draw them near.

Using my free hand, I grabbed the redcap’s face as it tried to bite down on my neck, pushing it away with a grunt of effort. The damn thing was stronger than I’d anticipated. I wasn’t going to be able to shove it off me like this.

With a jerk of my hand, I sliced the knife that had been pressed against the creature’s right palm. It let out a little squeak of pain as its hide-like skin was sliced open and I used its slight distraction to punch it in the face with my knife wielding hand. Unprepared for the blow, it flew backwards, rolling to a stop atop the leaves a few feet away.

I scrambled back up as it began to skitter towards me, using both its hands and feet like a quadruped, its neck bent back at an uncomfortable-looking angle as it stared menacingly at me. It was damn _quick_, too, moving like a spider across the uneven forest floor.

My blood turned to ice as that same sensation of age-old fear overcame me. It took more willpower than I’m willing to admit to actually move away from the thing. Though my limbs felt weighed down and unsteady, I managed to stumble to the side just in time to avoid those long claws as the redcap launched at me again. My hand pressed against the cold ground to steady myself, causing a flare of pain to shoot through my shoulder, from where I could feel the deep gouges left behind by the creature’s sharp claws.

I gritted my teeth and bore through the pain, pushing myself back up onto my feet and charging forwards. The creature had landed on all fours on the forest floor and was in the motion of turning back around to face me when my foot struck it square in its chest.

_Kick it like a football_, I’d told Tayra and Ava. Turns out that was some _sound_ advice.

That redcap went _flying _through the air, back striking hard against the trunk of a nearby tree. I launched myself forwards before he’d even begun to fall back to the ground, swinging my knife toward it with a vicious slice.

The blade struck bark.

Splinters of wood rained against the side of my face before I realised what had happened.

The fucking thing had used the trunk of the tree to launch itself away before I’d reached it. I could hear it against the loose forest floor behind me.

Instinctively, I ducked down, feeling tips of its claws brush through my hair as it sailed over my head.

Landing in a couch, the creature slid against the loose leaves until it was facing me, yellow eyes illuminated in the darkness of the woods.

“Pretty _sidhe_,” it hissed in English through that mouthful of teeth. “Tasty _sidhe_. Different. _Strong_.” 

It felt the need to highlight that statement by extending a long, red tongue and licking its crimson claws purposefully, growling deep in its throat as if enjoying every ounce of it.

I grimaced. “Nasty. You don’t even know where I’ve been.”

It’s sickeningly grating voice let out a sound almost like that of an amused chuckle. “Metal.” A lapping of lips. “Stone.” Baring its teeth in what I imagined was a smile, it leant forward on its hind legs – arms? – and hissed, “_Fortressssss_.”

That cold shard of fear struck me again as a momentarily forgotten tid-bit of information suddenly slammed into my consciousness with the force of a freight train.

Redcaps were kept as more than just servants by the Winter nobles. They were trackers. One of the best creatures adapted to smelling – not just scents, but the very _magic_ within their targets. It was said a redcap could sniff out a trail of magic for almost six-hundred _miles_.

“Home not far, pretty sidhe,” the redcap hissed with its creepy grin. “Many of mortal flesh there. Can smell on you, like stain.”

I slowly rose up from my own couch, fighting to keep my expression clear, to stop my hands and legs from shaking with fear. There was no way I could let this little shit go now. It knew where I _lived_. Where my _friends_ lived. It could follow my trail all over goddamn Georgia, if it wanted to.

“Can smell close, too,” it continued, almost tauntingly, as it placed its hand back to the ground and raised its haunches. Before I even had a chance to react, the redcap suddenly took off in a whirlwind of leaves. It dashed to the side, almost faster than a blink, toward the tree Mason was hiding behind.

By the time I realized what was happening, Mason had already let out a horrified scream.

“_Hello human_.”

Mason’s silhouette stumbled back from behind the tree, tripping over himself and falling onto his back. The moonlight glinted in his wide, terrified eyes as he stared up at the stalking form of the redcap as it skittered towards him. It lifted its clawed hands, chuckling low in its throat.

I charged forwards, tackling the thing like a footballer with enough force to send us both rolling down the slight incline of the forest in a tangle of limbs. Somehow, I managed to slam my knife down into the ground, anchoring myself. As I slid to a stop, the redcap threw out its hand, claws digging into the flesh of my thigh as it aimlessly grabbed at anything to stable itself. Its weight dragged it down further, tearing skin and muscle, and almost a scream from my throat. Somehow, I managed to hold it in as I reached down and grabbed its hand, prying it from my leg before using my other one to slam a foot into its face.

It skidded down the small hill a little further, giving me an opportunity to scramble back up onto my feet. I could feel Mason’s presence beside me and shifted my stance so that I could easily make a move to protect him should I need to.

Had his eyes even adjusted enough to see the truth of what was scampering up that hill? The terrified panting breaths that shook his entire body so violently I could feel it through the forest floor suggested so.

If I could pull this off, I would have a _lot _of damage control to deal with.

“Don’t move, kid,” I whispered to him over my shoulder as I reached down, pulling the other knife free from my belt. Clutching both of their handles tightly, I braced myself, readying for when the creature leapt at me again.

The world around me slowed as I took a deep, calming breath.

I watched as the creature pushed off its hind legs, rocketing through the air towards us. Smoothly, I brought both knives upwards, catching the creature in the chest with both blades as it collided with me. The force of it was enough to send me careening backwards, knocking Mason down with my shoulder. I fell partially atop him, with the redcap on top of me.

The damn thing began to squirm, blood cascading down my trapped hands and over my torso, coating me in a sulphurous stench.

From beneath me, Mason let out a strangled yelp. “_Kill it, kill it!_”

“The _fuck _do you think I’m doing!?” I shot back at him with a whisper-yell before attempting to slide my feet up beneath the creature’s writing form to give myself enough of an angle to free my hands and pull one of the blades free.

The damn thing was _strong_.

Its claws were flailing about, slicing into my skin as it frantically swiped, across my collarbone, my cheek, my neck. My throat was burning with the effort to hold back my screams. Finally, I got a foothold beneath it. I thrust with all the strength my legs could muster.

It flew back a few metres, rolling to a stop with an unhappy groan whilst I painfully returned to my feet.

Mason remained on the floor.

The redcap turned itself over and shakily climbed up onto its hind-legs, looking towards us, those glowing irises piecing through the dark night like blades. It’s slit mouth opened to fully expose all its rows of pointed teeth as it growled out nasty words in Fae. The thing spoke almost too fast for me to catch what it was saying, but it definitely ground out something along the lines of, “I’ll enjoy feasting on your flesh.”

I let out a sigh and lifted my hand.

A surge of magic rolled through me, originating from somewhere deep inside my chest, and flowing out through the tips of my fingers. With a flick of my wrist, the root of the tree behind the creature lifted from the dirt in had been encased in and shot forwards, pointed end piecing through the back of its skull and out of its open maw.

I felt the weight of the creature against the root as it slumped toward the ground, well and truly devoid of all life.

“Why didn’t I do that sooner?” I asked myself. I often had moments of “oh, yeah, _magic_!” as if I were _still _somehow not used to the fact it was fully within my capabilities to move plant life with my mind.

Footsteps sounded from somewhere behind me. A panicked voice called out my name.

I glanced toward it, flicking my wrist to the side and using the tree root to literally toss the redcap’s body deeper into the forest before letting my magic subside. The thick, pointed root slumped to the ground with a thud just as Daryl emerged, eyes wide as he lifted his crossbow.

He pointed it toward the first thing he saw, slowly lowering it when he realised it was me.

A few seconds later, Tyreese appeared behind him, wielding a burning stick. The light illuminated the shimmering blood that coated me and I heard the gasp escape Daryl before he dropped his crossbow and closed the space between us in a few hasty steps.

Over his shoulder, I saw Tyreese’s eyes widen, too, when he saw the state of me. His gaze slid to the side slowly to Mason, who was still on the forest floor, propped up on his shoulders and staring mindlessly at the base of the tree where the root I’d used to skewer the redcap lay, unmoving.

Daryl’s hand came up, gently pressing against the side of my face, by my jaw, as he turned my head from one side to the other.

I could feel the blood congealing on the series of claw marks on my cheek and had to actively focus on bringing my healing to a stand-still. Last thing I needed after this clusterfuck of a night was for Daryl to notice my injuries disappearing before his eyes.

I lifted my own hands up to grab his wrists, gently prying his warm hands from my face with a soft smile. “I’ll be fine.”

“The hell happened?” he asked, voice soft. His gaze was focused on me, concern turning down the corners of his mouth as he gave me a once over. “Jesus. We gotta get you back.”

“No,” I sternly stated.

“What the hell, man?” Tyreese breathed.

“B-bear,” Mason stuttered. His eyes were still fixed on that tree root.

Daryl looked at him, brows rising. “A bear?”

“A bear,” Mason repeated. Finally, he tore his gaze from the base of the tree and looked toward Daryl and I. His eyes were unfocused for a moment before zeroing in on me. “It was a bear.”

The look on his face implied he knew it was, in fact, _not _a bear and that he and I were going to be having a conversation later about what the hell he’d just witnessed.

_Joy_.

“Where’s it now?” Tyreese asked, shoulders tensing as his eyes scanned the shadows of the forest beyond his line of sight.

Mason shook his head and began to slowly climb up onto its feet. “Gone now. Syn, she – she, uh… scared it off?”

Tyreese’s eyes turned to me as he raised a questioning brow.

Daryl looked back at me, too, a concerned frown marring his features. His wrists were still clutched in my gentle grip. He softly pulled on them and I let go, only for him to grab my chin and lift it slightly. Gaze fixed on my chest, where a pair of long gashes cut open the flesh from my collarbone to the top of my breast, he let out a harsh breath.

“Christ, woman. Can’t ya not be a hero for five damn minutes?”

I could feel the blood dripping down my cleavage which was… an odd sensation. “Says Captain Heroics himself.”

Tyreese snorted.

Daryl let his grip on my chin drop, hands falling to his sides as he shook his head at me. “Come on, smartass. We gotta clean ya up.”

#

Daryl lead me away from the camp, toward the bonnet of a long-dead car situated in the middle of the road a few metres down from the others.

The moon was full, its pale light illuminating the night, no longer blocked by the high reaching branches of the forest trees. I could clearly see the concerned frown pulling down Daryl’s brows as he unclipped the small water flask he kept on his belt.

“Don’t waste –“

“It ain’t wastin’,” he returned before I’d even finished as he unscrewed the cap. “Tip ya head back.”

I didn’t. “Daryl –“

“Just – Goddamn it, woman.” He let out a huff of air through his nose and lifted his eyes from the flask to the marks on my cheeks, as if he were forcing himself not to meet my gaze. “Let me do it.”

Even with his back facing the moon, I could see the way he irritably chewed on the inside of his lower lip, the way his hands shook as they clasped the metal flask. Something was clearly bothering him and I doubted arguing right now would make it any better.

I took a deep breath, slid forward on the bonnet of the car I was sitting on, and tipped my head back.

One of his hands came up to gently grasp the point of my chin, turning my head to the side, so my wounds faced the sky. Then, slowly, he raised the flask and allowed a small amount of water to trickle from its narrow top.

The moment it hit my skin, I shivered without meaning to.

He pulled the flask away and reached into his back pocket to retrieve his cloth.

“You’ve washed that thing, right?” I asked with a smirk, only allowing my lips to turn up on the uninjured side of my face.

“Yesterday.” He tilted my chin back down and began to gently dab at the claw marks marring the skin of my check.

Silence settled. It was the kind of quiet that felt full, despite the fact the only sound that could be heard was the distant music of the wildlife around us. His gaze remained focused on the wounds whilst mine remained fixed on his face.

I couldn’t help but admire every inch of it. The way the moonlight struck the high curve of his cheekbones or the way his narrow eyes were shadowed by those long, dark lashes, only for those bright blue irises to shine through. Thin lips, curved slightly downward in a tight frown.

His face was one of rough beauty, entrancing in its simplistic complexity. Kind of like his personality, really. Soft but rough. Hard but gentle. He was a contradiction on tradition on all fronts and I couldn’t have been more enthralled by it.

“Stop that,” Daryl grunted.

I blinked, realising that I had been unabashedly staring at him whilst he dried the bloodied water from my cheek. “Stop what?”

He shifted nervously from foot to foot, readjusting his hold on the cloth in his hand. “Starin’ at me like that.”

I cocked a brow. “Like what?”

His gaze slid to mine for a second before he focused back onto my cheek. A few silent minutes passed before I realised, he either didn’t want to answer or didn’t know how. After a another moment, he blew out a breath and removed the cloth from my face.

“You were right,” he stated suddenly, taking a step away from me to pour some water over the damp, bloodied cloth.

I felt myself flinch slightly in surprise. Blinking once, I tilted my head to the side to regard him curiously. “I mean, I know – but about what?”

His focus was entirely on the red material in his hands. “The kid. Was stupid to let him come along.”

“The hell makes you say that?” I asked, somewhat confused.

Instead of responding, he retreated back into himself, chewing the inside of his lip as he wrung out the soaked cloth. The sound of the water striking the concrete road was the only thing that filled the silence.

I began to slide off the bonnet but he lifted a hand to gesture that I stay.

“Talk to me, Little Dixon,” I said softly.

Finally, he looked up at me. The confused expression on his face made him look almost akin to a kicked puppy and I felt my chest constrict. “What the hell am I supposed to think?” he asked.

“About what?”

“You and the kid.”

An odd sound, somewhere between a laugh and a gasp escaped me from deep in my throat. “_What_? What _about_ me and the kid?”

Again, he began to shift from foot-to-foot, as if nervous to even voice the question. His gaze went to his feet as he let out a long breath before looking back up at me, brows pulled down over his narrow eyes. “The hell were the two of ya doin’ out there?”

It took me an admittedly embracing amount of time to register what his question was actually insinuating. For a good few moments, I just stared at him in incredulous confusion. Was he… was he asking if Mason and I had been… _fooling around_?

I mean, in reality, it wasn’t _that _far fetched of a possibility. Mason was only three years younger than me and not an entirely unattractive guy now that he wasn’t bone-thin and sickly looking. But he was still a “kid” to me. I didn’t know if it was his mannerisms or that innocence that always seemed present in his eyes, but I’d always felt as if he were much more “youthful” than I.

My childhood had consisted mostly of being a parent to a much younger sibling and learning the best ways to murder people, so suffice to say, it was understandable from a logical standpoint that I felt (and often acted) a tad older than I actually was.

Despite all that, of course, the fact that Daryl honestly thought I was _interested_ in Mason was… Surprising. To say the least.

I mean, the suspicion I often saw when he sometimes looked at Rick and I – _that_ was understandable. I’ve already admitted to shamelessly flirting with the man. But my interactions with the sheriff weren’t inspired by emotion so much as… you know. He was hot and I am a creature of a physical nature. But Mason?

“We heard a noise and went to investigate like a pair of dumbass teens in a horror movie,” I responded, cocking a brow at him. “Why? What did you _think _we were doing?”

Daryl swallowed back something as he shook his head, waving a hand dismissively.

“Oh, no,” I mused. “No, no. You don’t get away with it that easily, Little Dixon.”

His gaze lifted to mine for a moment as he let out a breath through his nose.

I grinned teasingly at him. Which kind of hurt, given the three long gashes in the flesh of my cheek, but it was worth it to see the sheepish look on his face. “You thought we were doing something else, didn’t you? Something… undignified of a _lady_ such as myself, hmm?”

In the darkness of night, the blush on his cheeks practically glowed.

I let out an unrestrained giggle as I slid from the bonnet of the car. “Ah. You’re a funny one, Daryl Dixon.” And adorable.

“Hey, I ain’t done with you yet,” he remarked, reaching out with a damp hand to grab my shoulder.

I knew he meant cleaning up my admittedly gruesome-looking wounds, but the rough way he’d said it made something deep in the pit of my stomach tighten slightly. My brow rose of its own accord as I gave him a bemused once over. “Not done with me?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yo-you know what I meant.”

“Mhm,” I mused. Eventually, I did slide back onto the bonnet and allowed him to continue his fussing without any further teasing remarks.

The rest of that night passed by with little event.

I couldn’t get back to sleep – because it seemed as if the universe itself was conspiring to ensure I never got a full night of rest – so I elected to take watch for the remainder of the night. Daryl moved from where he’d been lying earlier and came to lean back against the log I now sat on whilst Mason appeared to shuffle as far from me as he could possibly get.

That might have hurt my feelings a little, but I didn’t let it bother me. The kid was frightened and confused – neither of which were things that exactly enabled a keen sense of trust between two individuals.

As much as I might have hated it, he was owed an explanation. Witnessing something far outside the realm of normal ate one up inside; I’d seen it happen before. I wasn’t about to let his fear, or my own, fester the relationship we had built.

The idea of opening up that part of myself terrified me more than I cared to admit. My kind were never too pleased to learn about another fae revealing their world to a human. Before the world had all but ended, it was basically a death sentence. Fae bound by law would hunt them down, before the information could spread.

Those like myself – who had been exiled from the fae realm entirely – were not usually ones to concern ourselves with such things. I understood the logic behind keeping our kind secret, of course, but there was also a part of me that… well, to put it mildly, didn’t give a fuck. If a human knew, a human knew. What did it really matter to us at the end of the day? It was the humans I worried about. This knowledge could change a person. It could _ruin_ them. Their very sense of reality would be forever altered. Every sound in the night, every shadow at the corner of their vision would suddenly become a potential threat. Darkness would become home to every nasty ghoul that haunted their nightmares.

Was it fair of me to force that kind of knowledge onto someone? To re-shape their entire world, without even giving them a choice?

My own fear of rejection and the whole potential-death-sentence-thing notwithstanding, that was one of the major reasons I never revealed the true nature of my world to those I cared for.

If they stumbled into it, I figured it was better to have an explanation that not, but I’d never drop that kind of bomb on someone without reason. Not a chance in hell.

This knowledge I would shoulder so they didn’t have to.

Be that my curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe. My least-favourite-favourite creature! Hope you enjoyed him :P
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading! I'm so thankful for all of you and really do hope you are still enjoying my story!  
As always, leave a comment! You know I love reading them. They always make me smile!
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,   
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	35. To Ride or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group searches for a car.

The morning was… tense, to say the least.

I’d remained on watch for the rest of the night with Daryl dutifully sitting by my side, constantly fussing over my injuries like a concerned parent. By the time the sky began to lighten, the pain had lessened to a dull ache. Each slight movement tugged at the edges of my wounds, and the cool morning air stung, but they were far from life threatening. Not that Daryl would hear that. You’d think I was about to drop dead the way he was watching me with that concerned frown.

Once the sun had begun to piece through the gaps in the trees, brightening the forest around us, I made a move to wake everyone.

Michonne grunted when I gently kicked her side, glancing up and glaring at me before rubbing an eye with her knuckle. “Time to go?” she asked, partway through a yawn.

I nodded.

“Better wake the kids.”

We woke the rest of the group one by one, leaving Claire, still unconscious by the base of a tree, until last. For the first few moments, it seemed almost as if she’d completely forgotten. She climbed up onto her feet, stretched a little, and made a remark about the chill in the morning air.

But, when her pale gaze slid across and found mine, I could practically see the moment the memory returned, as if it snapped into place within the space of a single second. It manifested in her expression; confusion, followed quickly by realisation, and then, of course, seething hatred.

“You assaulted me!” she yelled, jabbing a finger accusingly in my direction as I rose from my seat on the log.

Daryl rose with me, his body facing me, yet partially turned in Claire’s direction, as if he were preparing to hold back at least _one_ of us.

“You assaulted my patience,” I responded blandly. The exhaustion was clear in my voice and it wasn’t as if I weren’t physically displaying how bad of a night I’d had, but neither thing seemed to bother her as she prowled towards me, sneering.

“When we get back, I am going to –“

“To what, Claire?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “Report me to the council? Picket story-time? Get over it. I’m too tired to deal with your shit today, so let’s just get fucking a move on.”

I made a move to go, stepping over the smothered fire-pit, but she slid to the side to block my way. Ophelia hovered behind her, shoulders taut and lips pursed in disapproval as she watched the older woman sneer at me.

“No, no. You don’t get to walk away from me this time, Jacques.” She lifted her hand to point another finger at me. “We’re on even footing out here.”

I glanced between all of my companions with a cocked brow. “Raise your hand if you're at least 97-percent sure I could very easily kick her ass.”

Everyone bar Bob raised their hands.

I let out a breath of air through my teeth and gave her a mock sympathetic frown. “Damn, Clairy-Fairy. Wrong again.”

Once again, I made a move to step out toward the road. Michonne and Tyreese were already standing by the edge, looking down the slight incline at us with impatient frowns. I could feel their need, the urge to just get a move on already, as if it were my own. Bob and Mason began to make their way up the ridge that marked the edge of the forest and it didn’t escape my notice that the young man was using Bob’s body as a blockade between he and I.

_Wow. Okay, then, kid_.

It wasn’t until Ophelia made a move to turn away, seemingly confident the conversation was over, that Claire made her move. She launched herself at me, screaming out a defiant “_Bitch_!” as she did so.

Had I been operating at one-hundred-percent brain power, I might have let her get a hit in. As I saw it, her actions were sudden enough and I was certainly visibly exhausted enough for her to have caught me off guard. You know, had I been a _normal _individual, anyway.

Tired and fed up as I was, my body acted mostly out of instinct rather than logical thought.

My arm flew out and I caught the charging figure by the throat in one swift, mindlessly fast motion. The strength behind my outstretched grip was enough to bring her to an immediate halt, jolting her body so thoroughly that an almost comical gagging sound escaped her throat upon impact.

Without pause, I began to push her backwards, moving across the forest floor until I had her back pressed firmly against a nearby tree, my fingers curled around her neck and my cold gaze narrowed up at her.

I wasn’t squeezing, not really. She had more than enough room to breathe, but the sheer shock and impact of my actions had left her gasping for air.

Everyone around us froze, stiff and tense as their widened eyes watched us. Only Daryl remained in motion, moving to stand beside me, his intense gaze focused on my growling expression, hands twitching in anticipating. I knew without a doubt he would tear me away from Claire before I could do anything notably stupid and for that, I was thankful. It was the only reason I was able to keep my grip on her throat without succumbing to the urge to _squeeze_.

“I do not have the greatest amount of patience for you at the best of times,” I hissed. “But today? Oh, today, Claire… My will to let you keep breathing is growing thinner and thinner.”

Her eyes were wide as she stared up at me and I could see the reflection of my snarling face in them. I let the aggravated expression fade, replacing it with a tired scowl.

“We’re out here today for reasons outside you and I,” I sighed. “You know what they are. You know that every single person here right now has someone they care about on the other side of that quarantine door. Someone that is staring this thing down the barrel; someone that’s _suffering_. Right now. As we speak.” The exhaustion gave way to anger again and I felt my upper lip curl over my teeth as I glared down at her, my grip slightly tightening on her throat. “And God fucking damn it, Claire. All you do is slow us down, complaining about how shit is just oh-so-inconvenient for _you_. _Poor Claire, her feet hurt_. People are literally coughing up pieces of their _lungs_ back home, and you have the fucking _gall _to complain about your goddamn boots?” I pulled her forwards slightly, only to push her back harder against the tree trunk.

From my peripherals, I spotted Daryl flinching forwards slightly, as if he’d been about to make a move to pull me away, only to hesitate and rethink the decision.

On the other side of me, Michonne’s arm was bent over her shoulder, gripping the handle of her sword. I couldn’t make out her expression from the corner of my eye, but I could sense the rigidness of her tense muscles from where I stood.

“We have a fucking job to do. For our people. _Our_ people, understand? Yours _and_ mine – because that’s what they are. _Our_ goddamn people. And if you keep getting in the fucking way of that job, Claire…” I let out a breathy chuckle that was devoid of anything even remotely resembling humour. “I _promise_… I _will_ kill you.”

I lent in further, so close out noses were practically touching. She flinched, turning her head to the side and squeezing her eyes closed, but slowly opened her eyes to look at me again when I spoke.

“Do we have an understanding?” My voice was hushed, a cold whisper.

“Y-yes,” she squeezed out with a stutter.

I let go of her throat and took a step back, taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, watching as she lifted her hand to touch the reddened skin of her neck. Her expression was fearful as she looked back at me, lacking any of the usual animosity.

“Great,” I announced, slapping a bright grin onto my face – which admittedly kind of hurt my wounded cheek to do – and turning in place, beginning to march up to the road as I clapped my hands together. “Let’s go, team!”

#

An hour further down the road, Daryl stopped. He lowered himself down into a crouch and picked up a rock from the broken asphalt, licking his finger to rub the dirt from the stone.

“That jasper?” Michonne asked, coming to a stop beside him.

I came to stand by Daryl and patted him on the back. “That a gift for your girlfriend?”

He snorted and waved me off with his free hand.

“Girlfriend?” Michonne echoed with a bemused smile, cocking a brow at me in question.

Draping my arm over his shoulder, I gave Michonne a cheeky smirk. “Got a thing for Miss Richards, don’t ya?”

He shrugged me off, shaking his head. “Shove it.”

I chuckled.

“Gonna use it for her old man’s marker,” he explained, putting the quartz into his pocket with an indignant sniff before he continued to move.

I followed along, Michonne keeping in pace on his other side. She was watching him from the corner of her eye with a soft smile on her face, her head tilted partly to the side.

“You know everyone back there, don’t you?” she asked him.

My lips curled up into a proud grin, one that rapidly faded when Daryl snapped back a rather surly, “You stay in one place for more than a couple hours, you’d be surprised what you pick up.”

Michonne stopped in her tracks, staring after him with a troubled expression. I had hesitated in my step, glancing at Michonne and giving her an apologetic smile before jogging to catch up with the gruff man ahead of us. His gaze was focused solely on the road in front of him, jaw locked, breaths heavy through his nose.

I reached out to graze my hand against his forearm. “What’s up, Little Dixon?”

He continued on, readjusting the strap of his crossbow with a sniff and shaking his head. “Nothin’,” he grunted.

My brow rose and I shot him a pursed-lipped look that indicated I didn’t believe that for a second but didn’t push him further on it. He’d talk to me when he was ready to. Besides, I could see a building rising ahead of us, and knew we’d need to shift our focus to the matter at hand.

At the corner of the intersection ahead lay the broken stump of a fallen tree. The tree itself looked to have fallen across the face of the building, blocking the front entrance and taking out a series of parked cars in the process. When we arrived by the corner, Daryl let out a huff.

I stepped forward and began to pull back some of the branches until I spotted the glint of metal beneath the leaves. “Here’s one,” I announced. “Doesn’t look too bad. Help me move this.”

Daryl held the branch whilst Tyreese gave it a few good hacks. When it was separated from the rest of the fallen tree, Michonne and I pulled it off and tossed it onto the road, out of the way.

“Good place for a holiday home,” Michonne remarked, looking up and down the barren street. “Quiet. Woodsy.”

I pointed toward a lone walker that had appeared from behind the corner of the building and gave her a wide grin. “And the neighbours? To die for.”

She snorted and shook her head before pulling her sword free from her back and dealing with the newcomer in one swift slice.

Behind us, I heard Daryl let out a curse. He had climbed into the driver’s seat of the freed car and was fiddling with the cords beneath the wheel mount. When he slid out, he looked at me and shook his head. “Gonna need a new battery.”

In other words, we were going to need to get inside. I looked toward where I approximated the door to the inside of the building was, hidden behind the fallen tree’s thickly entwined branches, and frowned. Had I been alone, I could have used magic to get inside. Moving a whole-ass tree wasn’t exactly easy, but it was doable. In front of a live-studio-audience, however? No, thank you.

Daryl, Bob, and Tyreese began hacking away at the tree, some with more vigour than others. Mason stayed back, by the front of the car, watching. His narrowed gaze swept from me to the fallen tree and back again, a blonde brow slightly raising upwards, as if in a silent, somewhat judgemental question. I raised my own brow in response and was about to open my mouth and say something – probably stupid – when suddenly, a loud cry of shock diverted my attention.

A walker’s arm was clenched around Tyreese’s throat, trying to drag him forwards, into the foliage it had emerged from. He fought against the dead arm, gripping onto its rotting flesh and trying to pull it away from him to no avail. Beside him, Daryl shot forward, lifting his axe and trying to find an opening to slam it down on to the walker’s barely visible face.

My knife was in my hand within seconds and leaving it even faster. The blade silently cut through the air, passing by Tyreese’s face so close I was pretty sure I’d shaved a tuft of hair curling over his ear, before it embedded itself into the hidden face of the undead man holding him captive.

The arm went limp and Tyreese stumbled forward. Daryl caught him before he could lose his balance completely, but the movement had only brought Daryl into the proximity of a second set of arms. They shot out from the foliage as suddenly as a snake, catching him around the chest and pulling him toward the sound of gnashing jaws.

I launched myself forwards, my hand waving almost purely out of instinct. The unmistakable sensation of magic jolted through me as a thin branch from deep within the fallen tree wound itself into the walker’s open maw, catching its upper jaw before it’s teeth could latch onto Daryl’s exposed shoulder.

Both Tyreese and I reached Daryl before the thin branch could snap. We pulled him free of the clawing arms, stumbling back a few feet before the three of us collided with the side of the car.

The three of us panted for a few moments, staring at the trapped walker as it writhed within the twisted branches of the fallen tree.

Michonne stepped forward and drove the point of her sword through its skull, ceasing its movements.

“That was lucky,” Phee remarked, staring wide-eyed at the creature, now slumped forward partly out of the foliage. The thin branch was keeping its head partially upturned, still holding strong against the weight of its unmoving form.

I found my gaze sliding almost guiltily toward Mason, but he was staring at the walker, too, seemingly oblivious to my involvement. It had been a slight movement, easily dismissed as happenstance. Or, as Phee had put it, _luck_.

“You okay?” I asked in a whisper, noting not for the first time that Daryl was still partially leaning back against me, keeping me wedged between his hard body and the body of the car. His head turned slightly to look at me, nose no more than half an inch from mine. I heard him swallow before he gave the slightest of nods.

“Good,” I breathed. “That… that’s good.”

His proximity had thrown me off somewhat, and I awkwardly cleared my throat before shimmying free of my place between his body and the car.

After taking a good few steps away from the car, I let out a long breath and shook my head free of the odd fog that had fallen inside it. Weird. What the hell had that been?

It took me a second to get my breathing back under control, a feat which I was pretty sure no one noticed. Thankfully.

#

In hindsight, choosing to ride on the rooftop of a speeding car was… not the greatest of decisions.

Unfortunately, with only one working car, and people already sitting on laps, exiling me to the roof of the sedan was seemingly the only way we were all going to get to our destination. Of anyone, I was the obvious choice for the job – despite my only-partly-joking argument that we strap Claire up there like a used mattress.

Instead of that rather amusing scenario, it was I that was strapped to the car’s thin metal roof. A rope had been threaded through the two front windows; each end tied into a loop for me to hold onto. It would be enough – anything more than that would only cause more harm than good, something I unfortunately knew from experience.

You do not want to know what happens to a human body when the rope around its waist pulls taut at sixty miles an hour. It isn’t pretty.

To give Daryl credit, however, he wasn’t driving like a lunatic. In fact, it seemed as if he were being almost overly cautious; slowly down at every bump, dodging around pot holes at a snails pace. At one point, I even had to stick my head through the window and tell him to stop being a pussy and put some pedal to the metal or we’d never get where we’re going.

The drive was mostly uneventful from that point. You know, despite the fact I was concentrating on holding on for dear life.

When we finally arrived at our destination an hour later, I rolled off the rooftop and landed on the solid ground with a comical, “Freedom!” before any of them could even open their doors. I lay there whilst they all piled out, one after the other like out of a damn clown car, just letting my tense and stiff muscles relax.

My arms had been so stiff, it had felt like I’d lost the ability to bend my elbow for a solid minute.

“Get off me!”

A familiar whining voice called out as she shoved her way out of the car, falling onto the dry grass beside me with a comical _thump_. Bob slid out from the car behind her, face scrunched into a concerned frown as he reached down to help her back onto her feet. She slapped his hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, pushing herself up onto her knees. “I’m fine.”

From my place on my back upon the grass, I turned my head to look at her and smiled. “Pity.”

She, in a great show of poise and elegance, poked her tongue out at me.

I chuckled, turning back to look at the sky for another moment before a shadow shifted into my light.

“You a’ight?” Daryl asked, looking down at me with one brow slightly raised. He looked more bemused than he did concerned.

“Aren’t I always?” I remarked in response, flashing him a wide grin.

He snorted and offered his hand. I took it, allowing him to pull me up onto my feet with a grunt. His grip remained on my hand for a fraction longer than it needed to be.

“Alright, we take the floors in teams,” Michonne announced as she looked up at the three-story building before turning to face us.

Daryl and I took half a step away from one another. For… some reason.

“Phee and Claire, you take the top floor. Syn and Daryl take the second. Tyreese and Mason take the western wing of the ground floor and Bob and I will take the east.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Except me.

“I’ll go with the kid,” I announced, sliding my gaze across to zero in on an uneasy, frowning Mason. “Daryl can go with Ty.”

Daryl turned his head to give me a confused look, opening his mouth to no doubt put in an argument, but I shot him an “I’ll explain later” look and he snapped his mouth shut, waving an arm irritably before walking over to join Tyreese.

Mason stepped out of his way, stumbling slightly before I reached out to steady him, tossing an arm over his shoulder. I pulled him taut against my side before he could run and lowered my head, whispering to him as I began to lead him toward the building. “You and I are going to talk, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day!   
I am so sorry this update has taken so long! The end of the month is usually a hectic time for me at work, so I got swarmed with "responsibilities" and struggled finding time to write.   
Thankfully, I got this chapter. I know it's short, but I assure you the next one will be longer! Hope you enjoyed and, as always, don't hesitate to leave a comment!
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,   
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	36. The Whispers of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove finally opens up about the truth of what she is.

I could hear them the moment we stepped in through the creaking double doors of the front entrance, the guttural gurgling, the shuffling of uneven feet. If you closed your eyes and ignored the very potent stench of both death and the distant tang of formaldehyde, you could almost pretend that nothing had changed; that the halls were still full of eager students and tired professors.

That was, however, what Merle would call a “pipe dream”.

My grip on Mason’s shirt sleeve tightened when I spotted the stairwell, waving Phee toward it as I pulled the kid along. It would be rather obvious to anyone that Mason did not, in fact, want to be anywhere near me, yet no one commented on it. Not even Daryl. He just gave me a cocked brow, questioning look as we slunk into the stairwell.

There weren’t many walkers in here. We had to step over a dead body or two that had obviously taken some kind of unfortunate dive from the top of the steps, but other than that, the journey up to the second story was… uneventful.

I gave Claire and Phee a “good-luck” salute as we split off at the second floor landing, waiting for them to clear the next set of stairs above before letting myself listen in to the building. This hallway was louder than the others. I could hear the growling of the undead as they aimlessly strode down the linoleum floored hallways.

When we reached the door, I slowly poked my head out to check how clear the coast was before pulling Mason out into a haphazard sneak across the hallway toward the first classroom.

As soon as the door was closed behind me, I heard Mason’s footsteps almost frantically scuffle across to the other side of the room. Turning in place, I shot the boy a cocked brow look of incredulousness.

“_Really_?”

He didn’t respond.

When I began to approach him, he stepped to the side, putting the long desk table between the two of us and going so far as to pull out one of the chairs, gripping the backing with a white knuckle grip as he pulled it in front of him as a further barricade.

Not going to lie; that one hurt. He looked utterly terrified to be alone with me. Gone was the bravado he’d shown earlier with his near ceaseless glaring.

Feeling somewhat guilty, I took half a step back and raised my hands in a surrendering gesture, palms facing me.

Mason flinched at the movement, the base of the chair making a loud scuffing sound against the linoleum floor as he pulled it slightly closer to him.

“Hey…” I breathed. “I’m not going to hurt you, kid.”

His lip curled up a little over his uneven front teeth. “But you could, couldn’t you?”

“It’s not a matter of ability,” I argued softly. “Daryl could shoot you if he chose to; Tyreese could crush you if the notion took him. But they wouldn’t. Just because I can doesn’t mean I will.”

Mason watched me cautiously. He looked so young, cowering behind that chair, peering up at me with those cartoony, wide eyes. My heart gave a painful squeeze in my chest as I looked back at him, at the pallor of his face, the slight shake to his full lower lip. His innocence encased him almost like a second skin; simultaneously acting as both a shield and a hindrance. It protected him from the knowledge of worser things in life; yet it also gave him the inability to handle such things when forced to confront them.

I knew that innocence would get him killed one day, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be the one to destroy it. It was such an integral part of him, I shuddered to think what he’d become without it.

Telling him the truth of what he had witnessed last night would certainly shatter any semblance of child-like innocence he had managed to cling to in this hellscape. It would alter his entire perception of reality, distort his ideologies of sanity. Every shadow would become home to a monster, every distant sound the call of a creature his mind begged him not to lay witness to.

I’d seen it happen. The paranoia and the fear. I had witnessed it overtake a person until they were barely a ghost of the being they had once been.

Could I truly do that to him? Was it better to fear the unknown or be aware of what you fear? Did I have any right to make that decision for him – or had it already been made, the moment he had laid eyes on that redcap? Jesus. Would I be painting a target on his back by telling him the truth?

I knew that the knowledge of our kind left a mark on a human – a beacon to other, more perceptive members of my kind that he was aware of them. That he had Seen. Would that only serve to attract more trouble? There was no way for me to be sure some racist-(species-ist?)-ass faerie wouldn’t hunt him down purely to protect the “sanctity” of our existence from the mind of a human.

As I contemplated this, Mason stared back at me in trepidation, unsure of what my prolonged silence meant. Finally, I took a deep breath and gave him a resigned frown. “I can explain everything,” I breathed. “Tell you the whole story. But it would paint a picture you would _never _be able to erase, understand?”

He straightened slightly from behind the chair, his grip loosening only enough for the skin of his knuckles to return to their usual pink shade.

“There are things that you can’t unknow once you learn them,” I continued solemnly. “Trust me, kid. If I’d been given a choice way-back-when, I would have told them all to shove it and continued on my merry way without burdening myself with this bullshit.”

I don’t know whether it was my words or the miserable, hopelessly resigned way I’d spoken them, but something perked Mason’s interest. He had straightened fully now and was watching me with a mixture of hesitant sympathy and indecision. His grip on the back of the chair loosened further until his hands fell back to his sides and he took a half step out from behind it, jaw clenched as if in silent anticipation of an attack.

When I remained standing across the elongated bench from him, no more a threat than the dead rats in formaldehyde that lined the shelves, he let go of his hesitations and looked me directly in the eye.

“What are you?” he asked, voice surprisingly clear despite the slight shaken hitch to the words.

I closed my eyes briefly, letting out a breath through my nose as I felt the impact of his words strike me in the gut. A near choking sense of sorrow overcame me as I allowed myself to grieve a loss of something I couldn’t quite give words to. I swallowed it back down and opened my eyes to look evenly back at Mason.

His gaze was fixed on mine, steely in their intensity, his jaw locked tightly as he anticipated my response.

He had made his choice. It was time for me to make mine.

“I’m one of the fae.”

The words almost burnt my throat as I spoke them, my hands shaking as an odd wave of adrenaline flushed through my body. When was the last time I had spoken so brazenly about what I was? I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d said the word “fae” out loud, let alone to another person.

Unfortunately, Mason’s cultural knowledge of the old Celtic mythoses was not particularly awe-inspiring. His head tilted to the side in an almost bird-like motion of confusion, brows pulling down over his eyes as he gave me a befuddled frown.

“One of the what?”

The adrenaline faded, replaced by an almost ridiculous sense of disappointment. I needed to stop just expecting people to know this stuff. The stories weren’t entirely uncommon, but neither were they exactly commonplace among the general American populace. Unless, of course, you were a theatre kid – which Mason was definitely not. I let out a long sigh, pursing my lips in a frown.

“Fae. A faerie. I’m a fucking faerie, okay?”

It sounded so lame, so much less epic than it really was. Imagine having access to every fibre of magic that lived inside the world, to have the ability to manipulate the elements, to bend reality with illusions, to shift matter instantaneously from one place to another, to create or destroy with a wave of your hand, only for the grandeur of your being to be condensed down into a word like “faerie”. It was pretty, sure, but epic? Grand? Colossal? Not so much.

Mason blinked at me a few times, opening and closing his mouth as if struggling to come up with an appropriate response to my revelation. “A… a faerie?”

I nodded, opening my arms in a somewhat sarcastic presenting gesture. “Yep.”

“Like… like Tinker–“

My face instantly soured and I pointed a finger at the kid before he could finish that sentence. “_No_.”

“But –“

I kept my finger raised, cocking out my hip in a somewhat petulantly irritate posture. “_No_. I am _not _like Tinker Bell. I am exceedingly unlike the tinker of bells, okay? Practically opposites. In fact, the only thing we have in common is anger issues and an incessant need for attention. And the whole faerie thing, too, I guess. Even though she is technically – definitely – a pixie. In my educated opinion.”

“And the ears,” Mason unhelpfully added, lifting a hand to gesture towards the sides of my head.

I lifted a hand to self-consciously touch the pointed tip of my left ear. “Okay, yes. And the ears.”

“So, you’re a lot like Tinker Bell.”

“I am five-foot-eight. And I do not glow.” There was a pause before I added; “Also, I kill people.”

Mason’s brow twitched upwards as he nodded in acknowledgement of that. “Okay. So… you’re a faerie. Faeries are… a thing.” His gaze dropped to the tabletop, becoming unfocused as his thoughts spun inside his head. A long moment of contemplative silence passed before he looked up at me again, brows turned down, and asked, “So, what… exactly _is_ a faerie, then?”

A question I had hoped he wouldn’t ask. I took in a deep breath through my nose, gesturing to the room around us with a pursed frown. “Tell you what – I’ll tell you a fact for every room we scope out for meds. Sound fair?”

Mason shrugged a shoulder. “Sure.”

#

He was still cautious around me. Almost more so now than he had been before, but at least he was trying to hide it this time. I took that to mean he still cared about my feelings, which meant he still recognised me as Synnove and not just scary-magic-monster-woman.

We scoped out that first room rather quickly. Once we were certain none of the listed medications were to be found here, we slid free of the room and silently made our way to the next. Once the door was closed behind us, Mason turned to me, hands on his hips, brows raised expectantly

I snorted. “Alright, kid. Calm down. Go look in that cabinet.”

He gave me a pursed lipped frown before turning and hesitantly making his way across the linoleum floor to peer through the glass cabinet at the head of the room.

I took the other side of the room, climbing up onto the bench that ran along the length of the back wall in order to get a good look at the high shelves. Like the room before, most of the shelf was taken up by jars full of formaldehyde and dead animals. Unlike the room before, however, these animals seemed to be mostly reptilian in nature. A few of the jars had snakes coiled within them, their scales pressed up against the glass, distorting their natural patterns in an almost hypnotic manner.

“It’s important that you understand that “fae” is a rather general term,” I began, walking along the length of the bench as I spoke. “Kind of like how “fish” is a general term. There are thousands of different kinds of fae. I, for one, am what is known as a Sidhe. What you saw last night was what is known as a Redcap. And yes, it and I are technically the same species. Magic really seems to enjoy fucking with genetics.” I let out a humourless laugh.

Mason turned around, done with his surveying of the shelves, and frowned when he saw me atop the bench. “You and that thing are… related?”

“Not individually, no,” I responded with a snort. “Sub-species-wise, though? Kind of.”

His face contorted into a confused frown and I found myself chuckling light-heartedly at the familiarity of that expression. I reminisced for a moment the day I had first found out about the world hidden within our own. About magic and faeries and all the bullshitery that came with them. It had confused the shit out of me at first, too, but live amongst chaos for long enough, and you’ll begin to see the patterns within.

“Let me make it a little easier for you.” I jumped down from the bench and crouched down the begin raiding the cupboards beneath it. “The fae realm is divided into three territories called Courts. First, you have Avalon, which is also known as the Seelie Court or the Court of Summer.” I found myself flinching as a series of old memories began to surface in waves.

Eyes of bright emerald and a sly, charming grin; the image of a crown of thorn and gold; of a flowing green dress and pale eyes rimmed in golden kohl. Of a throne room, vast as it was magnificent – a giant dome of wood and glass with rays of golden sunlight caressing the garden within and a stone pathway that lead to a twisting throne of vine and fire. Of a man with eyes the colour of molten gold upon it.

I shook my head to free myself of that image, clearing my throat as I awkwardly focused my attention back on the dark interior of the cupboard in front of me.

“Anyway… The second territory is _Tír na nÓg_, home of the _Un_seelie Court – or the Winter Court. Also sometimes referred to as the Dark Court – because the super fun stereotype is that all Unseelie fae are homicidal assholes. Like that redcap, for instance. He was one of the Winter fae.” I straightened from where I’d been crouching, turning to look at Mason, who had – at some point – decided to take a seat at the desk at the head of the room whilst I spoke. He looked absolutely enthralled by my every word. I surprised a small smile.

It was an improvement from sheer terror, that was for sure.

“Now, kiddo. Let’s take a second to remember that stereotypes are bad and mean. Yes, admittedly, a very large portion of the Unseelie fae population are… well… homicidal assholes. Most of them like to eat people, too… _But _I can almost guarantee you that the same percentage of Seelie fae are homicidal, people-eating assholes, too. So, really it’s just most fae in general. Take me, for instance.” I proudly pointed to my chest. “I am both fae and asshole. Also, yes, kind of homicidal, I’ll cop to that. Could be a side effect of immortality, who really knows?”

Mason’s eyes suddenly went so wide, they were almost fully circular. “Immortality?” he echoed in a breathless voice. “You’re _immortal_?”

“Depending on your definition, yes.” I pursed my lips in a slight frown. “I mean, I can be killed. We’re not immortal in that sense. More… ageless, I guess. Once we reach our prime, our aging slows right on down until it’s practically non-existent.”

Mason slowly rose from his seat, brows lowering once again into that cautious, troubled expression of his. “How… How old are you… you know… really?”

That question made me actually laugh out loud, which I realised, in a building full of walkers was probably _not _a good thing. I slapped my hand over my mouth until I could take a deep breath and sober myself.

“Sorry, kid. It’s just… I’m twenty-four.”

I watched his expression contort even further as the confusion struck him.

“So you’re… you’re _actually_ twenty-four?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m not even a baby faerie, I’m like… a fucking fetus. The next youngest fae I know? Ninety-six. And do you think they treat him like a capable adult or like he’s just learnt how to walk?”

“The second one?”

I gave him a bemused nod. Sterling may have been a good seven whole-ass decades older than me, but he was still considered a kid by fae standards. You weren’t really treated with genuine respect until you hit your first hundredth – unless, of course, you’d earnt it alternative ways, like I had.

“Come on. There’s nothing in this room.”

I began to make my way to the door, but Mason called out to me in a whisper-yell, “Wait!”

Turning to look at him, I cocked a brow. “Yes?”

“You didn’t tell me the third,” he stated with an expression that _almost _looked like a pout.

“The third what?”

“Territory. Or court, or whatever.”

My lips parted slightly as the realisation hit and I gave him a small nod. Something… odd settled in my stomach, swirling uneasily in my gut like a shark preparing for an attack.

Guilt.

I cleared my throat and tried to ignore it. “Right. Yeah. The, uh… The third territory is known as the Wildwoods. It doesn’t technically belong to any one court, more-so just… tribes and villages of Wildfae.”

The word made that swirling sensation in my stomach turn into a sharp stab of pain. Wildfae. I had known next to nothing about them when I had first been dragged into the fae realm, despite the fact my entire reason for going had been to fight in a war against them. Honestly, I still knew so little about their people that I couldn’t help but feel guilt for the way the Courts had treated them. They were a simple folk, sure; deciding to live their lives amongst the trees instead of in keeps and castles, like most those of the Summer and Winter. Their beliefs were of respect and loyalty, of togetherness with all that lived around them.

They hadn’t even started the war. The Seelie had, when, out of arrogance, the Summer King and Queen had laughed in the faces of their people when they had bid them to be recognised as a Court of their own. That was their crime. A simple request to be treated as equals. When the people of the Courts spoke of them, they acted as if they were savages. They spoke only of the attacks to the villages along the border of the Wildwoods, of the unhinged way their barely-trained soldiers fought. What they did not speak of was their own raids upon the bordering Wildfae villages and camps, or the fact that their soldiers only seemed untrained because neither court would recognise their fighting style as a legitimate skill.

I hadn’t learnt any of this until after, of course, when I had spoken with an exiled Wildfae about his homeland and the one they had called Wildking. The king I had murdered.

_God_, I had been such an ignorant child.

“You okay?” Mason asked, suddenly snapping me out of a reverie I hadn’t even known I’d fallen into.

I blinked hard, gave him a silent nod, and slipped out of the room without another word.

#

The hallway held more walkers than it had the last time we’d stepped out into it.

My loud bark of laughter earlier had likely drawn them our way. Not that it bothered me. It was easy for us to manoeuvre around them, silently stalking down the hall and across a corridor opening to another block of science-y classrooms. I hadn’t spoken much since I’d told Mason of the Wildwoods, and I knew the poor kid probably had so many more questions but thinking about the war had mentally and emotionally drained me.

To give him credit, he didn’t really start pushing me until we had reached the second to last classroom. So far, we’d only managed to find a few bottles of baloxavir marboxil, which was both awesome to say out loud _and_ an anti-viral medication close enough to zanamivir to be worth pocketing.

Actually finding something worthwhile had boosted my mood a little, apparently notably enough for Mason to feel comfortable probing me for more information. His excitement was palpable as he bounded into the room behind me, still bouncing on his heels as he turned and closed the door silently behind us.

“So, can you cast spells, or are you more like the Avatar? _Oh_, could you turn me into a rabbit? I wonder how many animals in the wild were actually people once? That reminds me – do you know what else exists out there? If faeries do, others should, too, right? Bigfoot? Loch ness? Are ghosts real? Oh, my god, are werewolves real? Vampires? Dragons! Are _dragons real_?”

I spun around to face him. “Slow your roll, kid!” A soft chuckle escaped me when I saw the excited grin on his face. “Look, magic is… complicated,” I explained with a sigh. “It can be used in a thousand different ways but some fae can only access certain types and it’s a whole thing. Sometimes it’s divided into elemental manipulation – yes, like _Avatar_. But it can also be illusionary, conjuration, healing. There are fae that use magic to shift forms; others that can channel it into spells and enchantments. It’s a very versatile thing.”

Mason nodded along almost comically as I spoke, as if he were an enthralled student and I the professor. I turned around in place to hide my smile from him and began to make my way across the room the line of metal cupboards that ran the length of the far wall.

He followed along behind me. “So… What kind of magic does your kind of faerie do?

“Fae,” I corrected as I reached out and opened one of the cupboards. “Well… Okay, technically speaking… Sidhe have access to every type of magic. Whether or not they have an affinity for it is a totally different story. And it is often dependant on your lineage.” The smell of chemicals that wafted free of the open cupboard door made me stumble back a step with its intensity. “_Whoo_.”

“So, you could turn me into a rabbit, is that what you’re saying?”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “In theory, yeah. I probably could. In practise? Wouldn’t have the foggiest idea where to start.” Turning back into the cupboard, I began to look through the small bottles of chemicals neatly piled within. “Not to burst your carefree bubble, there, kiddo, but you actually have to learn how to use the magic you wield.”

“You don’t just… you know… naturally know how to use it?”

I gave him a serious look. “Not really, no. I can feel it there, but controlling it is a whole other matter.”

He was silent for a few minutes, leaning back against a table behind him as I sifted through the contents of the cupboard.

“Elemental,” I stated after the silence had begun to stretch almost uncomfortably long.

“What?” Mason asked. He was blinking hard when I turned to look at him, as if trying to tear himself away from a daydream. When his gaze fixed on me, a thin brow rose.

“My main area of expertise,” I clarified. “Elemental magic. It comes the most naturally to all fae – there aren’t many that don’t have an affinity for it to some degree.”

“That’s like water and fire, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “Depending on the court your part of, yeah.”

He blinked again.

“Those with an Unseelie lineage only ever have an affinity for ice, water, and air whilst Seelie only ever have earth, plants, and fire. Some have what we called “linked or sub-elements” – like the ability to summon lightning; or to control magma, but that’s usually only fae of exceeding power. Like a royal. All the royal fae have an affinity for a sub-element. Sometimes two.”

“So, which are you?” he asked. “Summer, right?”

I dropped my gaze as I nodded in response. It wasn’t a lie, of course. I was technically one of the Seelie.

Mason let out a loud gasp as if just realising something. “You can fire-bend?”

Another breathy chuckle escaped me. “Funnily enough, fire happens to be one of my strongest elements. So, yeah.”

“Can you show me?” he asked, eyes widening like a toddler staring at his advent calendar and realising its the day before Christmas.

Despite the fact I knew we were alone in the room, I glanced to the left and right before I was comfortable enough to raise my closed hand. With a small smile, I opened my fingers, exposing the small, flicking flame that danced across my palm.

His entire face lit up in delight as the fire cast a reflective flame in his wide eyes. “That’s so fucking awesome. Oh, my God.” He lifted his gaze to mine and grinned wide. “This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I snorted a laugh, closing my fist to extinguish the flame. “Not gonna lie, kid. I’m glad to hear that.” My smile faded slightly. “I was… kind of worried you’d be scared of me.”

His brows furrowed. “Is that why you haven’t told anyone?”

“Well, one of the reasons, yeah. It’s also not exactly something you just… come out and say to people.” I gave him a very serious look, stepping slightly closer to him so we were practically nose-to-nose. “This stays between us, okay? You can’t tell anyone. Understand?”

Mason nodded. “Sure.” A slow, sly grin began to form on his face. “I like the idea of having a secret with you that even Daryl doesn’t know.”

I pointed a warning finger at him. “Watch yourself there, kid, or I _might_ do something _really_ cool and turn you into a rabbit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pheeeeeew.  
Okay. That was a lot to take in, my bad.  
For some reason, this chapter made me the most nervous to post. I really hope you all enjoyed it and it wasn't just a boring info-dumping. And I really hope you guys all like the world I'm slowly developing behind the scenes of the story :D
> 
> As usual, I hope you're all doing well and I'm super thankful to you all for tuning in. Don't forget to leave a comment, because I unabashedly thrive on them. 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, Always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	37. The Bottle That Broke The Camel's Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting back up with the group, Synnove and the others try to escape the walker filled school.

We met up with the others in one of the darkened rooms downstairs. Everyone had found at least something on the list, with Bob having come up with additional medications – brutal but effective ones, to make up the time we had lost. As we finished boxing up our haul, I heard the sound of panicked footfalls in the hallways outside and made my way to the door.

Peaking out, I spotted Phee making her way around the corner from the stairwell, sweat making her tan skin glisten in the dim light. I could see the whites of her wide eyes as she ran down the hall toward me and I stepped free of the room, lifting my hands to coax her to calm.

“What the hell happened?” I whispered as she slowed to a panicked walk.

“There were so many of them. I – We were… We were trying to cross the hall but –“ Phee looked down and shook her head, coming to a stop before me and putting her hands on her hips. Her coiled shoulders rose and fell in quick succession as she struggled to catch her breath. “Claire. She… She fucking _sneezed_.”

I blinked, brows rising. “She… she _sneezed_?”

Phee nodded, lifting her gaze to meet mine. There was no humour there, only a deep sense of regret and guilt that twisted her thick lips into a tight line. “They came for us. We got separated. I – I ran for the stairs.”

A small, admittedly cruel smile spread across my mouth. “Are – Are you telling me that… a _sneeze_ was Claire’s undoing?”

Phee’s brows furrowed. “_Jacques_.”

“I’m just – A _sneeze_? I mean, I’ve joked about her delicate sensibilities, but this is just –“

“_Synnove_.” Phee was looking at me with a disappointed frown and I forced myself to wipe the grin from my face.

I waved a hand. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m being disrespectful.”

Within the silence that followed my statement, I heard the distant sound of echoing growls and shuffling footfalls. My face contorted into a frown at a loud series of crunches reverberated through the hallway from the direction of the stairwell. I looked up to Phee. “Did you happen to bring some friends with you?”

Her brows rose, mouth opening in shock as she realised. “Shit.”

The two of us burst back into the room where everyone else was finishing packing and announced that we were about to have company and that it may be worthwhile leaving before they arrived. Everyone thankfully agreed and we began making our way back toward the entrance.

Only, the door to the stairwell was between us and the double doors we had entered through. The moment we rounded the corner, the damn thing gave way and a horde of walkers came spilling out into the hall.

“About face!” I called, grabbing Mason’s thin shoulders and spinning him around, pushing him back the way we’d come.

The others did the same and, as I was last in the pack, I gave myself a brief moment to wave a hand at the pile of upended desks nearby that had obviously been used as a makeshift barrier by some unfortunate soul once upon a time. The tingle of magic spread through my chest and down the length of my arm as I coaxed the air currents in the room to bend toward the underside of the pile, sending the desks flying across the hallway in a rather unsubtle attempt at blocking the way.

No one had much of a mind to take notice, too busy with their movements forwards. Michonne took the front of the group, Daryl beside her ensuring the path was clear. Phee and Tyreese were behind them, with Mason following closely and Bob a few paces ahead of me. He ran with his backpack clung to his chest, as if he hadn’t had the forethought to throw the straps over his shoulders.

We kept moving, dodging groups of walkers as they spilled free of classrooms and from around corners. Eventually, we found ourselves barricaded in what looked to be an old storage room, blocked on both sides by the undead.

Daryl and I had pulled a cabinet across the block the door we had just come through, but the walkers on the other side were gathering strength as their numbers grew, and the damn thing was beginning to rock back and forwards. On the other side of the room, through the only other set of doors available to us, a collection of rotting hands pushed through the crack between the chained doors.

The smell that wafted through that gap made my shoulders tense.

Michonne took a step closer to it and I reached out to yank her away rather unceremoniously.

“Don’t go near ‘em,” I whispered.

Tyreese gave me a funny look. “Why?”

“They’re sick.” My nose scrunched up involuntarily. I’d recognise that smell anywhere.

Daryl came up behind me. “It’s that way or no way.”

I looked up at him with a frown. He met my concerned gaze with a confident nod and I blew out a long sigh. The bastard had a point. We would need to clear a way through if we had any hope of getting out of here.

My gaze slid across and locked with Mason’s. He gave me a knowing look, cocking a brow and pursing his lips expectantly.

“_Fine_,” I breathed, reaching down to drawn my daggers. “Open the damn door. I’ll deal with it. Mich take rear.”

For once, no one argued. Tyreese reached down and unwound the chain from between the door handles before taking a long step back as the weight of the walkers pushed the doors open. They spilled out in a torrent of rot and shambling feet and I lifted my blades, angling my feet before tearing through them like a blur of pure half-hearted destruction.

Behind me, Michonne took out the ones I allowed to slip past whilst Daryl and the others turned at the sound of the cabinet behind us crashing to the ground. They dealt with our old friends whilst Michonne and I cleared a way through the new ones. Once I had shoved my knife through the eye socket of the last disease-ridden walker, I whistled to the others, leaning against the wall and allowing them to pass by me so I could – once again – be free to use a magical means of assistance to block against our pursuers should I need to.

We ran through the thin hallway towards an open window that lead out to the lower courtyard. Michonne was the first through it. She rolled across the sill, landing on what sounded to be a metal roof sheet before turning in place and reaching back in through the window for the supplies. Daryl passed through the box of medicine jars before he climbed through, turning in place to take the bag of equipment from Tyreese.

The walkers stumbled along behind us, their numbers growing as more and more of their ilk slipped free of the doors along the thin corridor.

It was as I turned my neck to glance behind me, trying to spot some form of barrier I could use to put their pursuit on hold, that it happened. A few paces ahead of me, the strap of Bob’s backpack hooked on one of the curved door handles as he ran past. The bag was ripped from his grip and he skidded to a panicked stop as it hit the ground with a fragile-sounding crash.

With my attention having been focused on our ever-growing collection of groupies behind us, I didn’t notice Bob’s halted form fast enough to dodge it completely. My shoulder struck his as I partially twisted away from him, upsetting my balance and sending me crashing into the wall opposite him.

The pause in movement gave me long enough of a moment to witness him reaching back out for his backpack as it was almost trampled underfoot of one of the faster dead guys. Yanking the bag out from beneath the walker, Bob was almost squished beneath its toppling form, only to be saved by my stupid ass as I football-tackled the thing.

Clutching his backpack to his chest once again, Bob turned and began to sprint toward the window. I had put myself in a shitty spot, having pushed the walker up against the wall, giving the faster ones behind us enough time to close in around me.

I pushed myself away from the wall, using my body weight to shove the walker behind me back far enough to give me an opening to duck beneath the outstretched arm of the undead man blocking my path to the window.

But as I made a move to step past them, a burning pain pieced through the base of my foot and I stumbled forward, slapping my hands down to catch myself before my forehead could collide with the linoleum floor. I didn’t let the shock of the sudden pain hold me in place. As soon as I had caught myself, I pushed back up onto my feet and bit back against the pain as I hobbled toward the window.

The walkers were hot on my tail. An arrow whirled past my ear. I didn’t slow down.

My new wound bit painfully at the base of my foot but I clenched my teeth against it, forcing myself to use the appendage. I could deal with the pain later. Right now, I needed to get to safety.

“_Syn_!” Daryl yelled.

I glanced up from the floor to see him leaning through the window, his hands now outstretched toward me.

“_Come on_!”

With a burst of speed, I managed to leap forward, catching his hand in my own. The moment his warm fingers curled around my own, I felt him pull. He pulled my arm with one hand, reaching out for my hip with his other as he tried to hoist me upward, over the sill.

Something cold caught my ankle.

Daryl’s grip slipped slightly, unprepared for the sudden resistance, and I reached up to grab the brickwork around the window’s outer edge.

I was confident enough in Daryl’s readjusted grip on me and my own hold on the brick to give the walker currently gnawing on the tip of my boot a solid kick with my injured foot. “_Shit-fuck_!” I yelled as the pain shot through from the base of my foot, all the way up my leg to the joint of my hip.

With the loosening of the walker’s grip, Daryl was able to pull me all the way free of the window. My ass struck the unsteady metal roofing sheet they were all balancing on as Mason reached around me and pulled the window shut. I pulled my burning foot up toward myself, narrowing my gaze at the thick shard of bloodied glass that protruded from the top of my boot.

“Ow,” I whispered to myself, my voice almost amusingly absent of urgency as I twisted my foot around to see the base of a bottle stuck to the bottom of my boot.

Michonne let out a hiss when she saw the broken bottle poking through my foot. Tyreese put his clenched fist up against his lip and curled his face into a sympathetic grimace whilst Phee just spat out a, “_That’s nasty_.” 

Mason just patted my shoulder in an awkward show of apathetic sympathy. He obviously assumed it didn’t bother me. As if my immortality cancelled out my ability to feel pain or something.

Spoiler. It did _not_.

A low growl drew my attention to the left, to where Daryl was standing, staring down at a rather guilty-looking Bob. The hunter reached out and snatched the backpack from the other man’s tight grip, pulling open the zip and peering inside before violently throwing it back to him with another angered growl.

Michonne moved forward to put a hand on Daryl’s shoulder, but it did little to stop him as he stalked toward Bob, fists clenched at his sides. He pressed his forehead against the other man’s with his lip curled up in a feral growl.

Bob backed up, eyes squeezed shut as he clenched that backpack tighter and tighter against his chest, doing his best to avoid reacting to Daryl’s violent presence. He only stopped with the heel of his foot reached the edge of the metal roof.

“_Daryl_,” I breathed.

He stopped prowling forwards but didn’t back away.

Bracing my palm against the brick wall, I hoisted myself up onto one foot and hobbled over to where the two men were standing by the edge of the roof. I used Michonne’s solid shoulder as a crutch as I looked at Daryl, at his angrily contorted features, and at Bob’s pained expression.

“Daryl, stop.”

Daryl growled before stepping away with a grunt. He took a few steps toward the others before whirling back around and jabbing an accusatory finger into Bob’s chest. “You almost killed her. You get that, man?”

Bob gave a pained nod. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Daryl echoed and I sensed more than saw his entire body tense as if he were about to throw a punch.

“Daryl,” I cut in before he could, stepping away from Michonne in order to place a hand on the coiled muscle of his shoulder. “I made it out. I’ll be okay.”

His narrowed gaze slid toward mine. When our eyes met, I felt his body relax slightly, the tensed muscle of his shoulder loosening as a long, almost relieved breath slowly expelled from his chest.

“We need to get going,” I continued, my voice soft. “This isn’t going to help anyone.”

He and I looked at one another for a silent, tense moment until he finally let out a harsh breath through his nose and turned away from Bob.

#

I sat on the bonnet of the car as Mason wrapped a bandage around my bare, bloody foot. The others were packing the small trunk (boot) with our spoils, sans the bottle of alcohol that had survived the fall of Bob’s bag earlier. He’d stolen two, apparently, from one of the professor’s offices. When they had fallen, something inside him had overridden his sense of morality and he had prioritised their well being over mine. I understood. My first adoptive father had been an alcoholic. It wasn’t a pretty thing to witness, even when the person they were without the alcohol was still a jackass. I recognised it for the illness it was and had told Bob at least five times now that I forgave him.

Wasn’t going to let it slide or anything, but I forgave him.

Daryl, on the other hand… You would have thought Bob had shot his damn dog right in front of him or something the way he was looking at him. He hadn’t even spoken a word in Bob’s direction for the past ten minutes and whenever his gaze turned that way, his eyes would narrow almost instinctively. Daryl had also been the one to toss the other bottle of whiskey as far into the forest as his human strength would allow him.

Which was pretty far, actually – impressively far, if I’m being honest.

“You can just, like… heal this, right?” Mason whispered to me from where he knelt by the front of the car. He nodded his head down at the foot in his hand.

I shrugged a shoulder. “Mostly. My body usually does it naturally.”

“That’s so cool.” He laughed to himself and wound the bandage around another loop. “Do you just… pretend it still hurts or something?”

“I can stop it healing if I concentrate hard enough,” I answered, glancing over my shoulder at the group at the back of the car.

“Why would you stop it?”

“Why do you think?”

“Are you that frightened of what other people think?” Mason’s voice grew louder and he had to catch himself before continuing. “I mean, if you really believe Daryl would _ever_ hate you for literally _any_ reason, let alone for something as _awesome_ as this, you _really_ need to re-evaluate your outlook on that relationship.”

I furrowed my brows. “What the hell is _that _supposed to mean?”

Mason rolled his lips back until there was nothing but a dark line where his mouth should be as he shook his head. I pulled my foot away from him, unwinding some of the bandage as I did so, and leant forward to survey him with a narrowed eye.

He rolled his eyes around in an over-dramatic show of avoiding my gaze.

“You ready to move?” came Daryl’s voice from behind us.

I straightened so fast, the heel of my foot struck the car’s bumper and I hissed out a curse. Mason snorted as he tried to hold back a laugh and failed miserably.

“What?” Daryl asked as he came to stand beside me, glancing between the giggling Mason and I with a raised brow.

I shook my head, waving a dismissive hand before pulling my leg up and wrapping the rest of the now-bloodied bandage around my foot myself. Once I had successfully tightened it, I slipped my boot back on with a grimace of discomfort.

“You’re ridin’ shotgun,” Daryl informed me in a tone that bid no room for argument. The demanding way he spoke that sent a pleasant sensation up my spine that I did my best to ignore. “Come on.”

I shared a bemused look with Mason as I slid off the bonnet of the car and began to turn toward the passenger’s side door when a sudden… odd sound vibrated through my skull. Pausing mid-step, I straightened my back and tilted my head slightly to the side.

Daryl’s shoulder’s tensed and he reached up to touch the strap of his crossbow. “What is it?”

I met his cautious gaze with a confused one of my own. “I… I don’t –“

Furrowing my brows, I allowed my body to heed my instincts and turned in place. Something was telling me the faint sound was important; and that it was coming from this direction. I scanned the surface of the building before us with a deep frown.

The sound rattled through my brain again and my gaze was drawn upwards, to the third story window overlooking the car park.

My expression went slack. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Through the reflective pane of the third story window stood a figure, banging furiously against the safety glass, soundlessly screaming as she tried to get our attention.

Daryl stepped up beside me, lifting a hand to shield his gaze from the sun as he tried to follow my line of sight. “See somethin’?”

“Uh…” For a brief moment, I debated the moral implications of pretending otherwise, but eventually… “_Yeah_. Yeah, I do.”

This gained the attention of the others of our group, who all came to stand in line with Daryl and I, squinting up at the third story of the towering building with confused frowns.

“What?” Tyreese asked.

“Fucking Claire,” I breathed in response, staring up at the woman as she jabbed her finger against the glass, pointing accusingly at me. I’m pretty sure I saw her mouth the word “bitch”.

It took a moment, as it was quite difficult to peer through the reflective image of the blue sky above us and into the actual room itself, but eventually everyone else spotted her, too. Phee let out a strangled laugh whilst Michonne and Daryl shared a look before glancing in my direction as if they expected me to be the one to suggest we leave her there.

“Hell no,” Mason remarked after a tense silence. “That place is crawling with gawkers. No fucking way I’m going back in.”

“We can’t just leave her,” Tyreese stated, stepping forward and looking between us meaningfully. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Michonne agreed softly, lifting her hands into a surrender-like gesture as she looked up at Tyreese. “But we have to remember what we’re here for. If we go back in there, the likelihood we make it out a second time isn’t high.”

“We have a job to do,” Bob said, speaking for the first time since we’d dismounted that shaky rooftop.

“We gotta get these meds back, man,” Daryl put in, frowning as if agreeing with Bob had physically pained him.

“She’s my responsibility,” Phee sighed suddenly. “I’m the one that left her up there in the first place.”

“Our responsibility is to the people back at the prison,” Michonne argued. “_Our_ people.”

I was still looking up at Claire’s figure through the glass, watching as she stilled, having realised we were standing down here, debating her fate. When the silence suddenly grew intense enough for me to notice, I turned back to look face them, only to find everyone staring at me.

I shrunk back a little. “What?”

“You haven’t given us a witty one-liner about her being a bitch, yet,” Phee remarked, her words somewhat at odds with the concerned look on her face.

I nodded slowly before looking back up at Claire.

Unlike the others, my enhanced eyesight could make out the look on her face through the window and across the distance. I could see the way her mouth had fallen slightly open in an expression of despair as she watched, with wide, red-rimmed eyes, as we stood there with her life in our hands and did nothing.

Daryl shifted beside me, turning his body toward me as a harsh hiss escaped him. “Fuck no.”

I looked back at him with a deep frown but didn’t say anything.

“No,” he growled again, voice harder this time. “I ain’t letting you – You ain’t –“

“It literally pains me to say this, but…” I looked back up at her and cringed. “I can’t leave her here.”

Phee stepped forward to look at me with an aghast expression. “You threatened to _kill her _a couple hours ago.”

I nodded, still grimacing. “I know, I know. But murdering her with intent and killing her out of negligence feel like two very different things.”

Everyone went silent for a moment whilst Michonne let out a long sigh. Beside me, Daryl shook his head and reached out to grab my upper arm, pulling me closer to him so he could lower his voice.

“You got a bung foot and a damn hero complex,” he hissed. “You know you go in there, you ain’t comin’ out.”

I looked up at him, into those bright eyes that were… very close… and gave him a confident grin. “Come now, Little Dixon. Where’s the faith?”

He twisted his head a little to the side, eyes narrowed as he chewed on his lower lip in anger. “Don’t you say it.”

I slowly opened my mouth, purposefully extending the moment until I finally said, with a bemused glint in my eye, “Merle would’ve let me do it.”

Daryl threw my arm away and spat out a, “_Goddamn it, woman_!”

He turned partially away before pausing, looking back at me over his shoulder with a shake of his head and a twisted frown. “That ain’t fair.”

I shrugged a shoulder and took a step forward, purposefully using my injured foot as if to prove I could hold my own weight on it. The pain that shot up my leg was met with a stoic expression as I forced myself not to show it. “What isn’t fair is us making a big show of being “for our people” and then leaving one of them behind to die.”

Why I was fighting so hard for this was, honestly, beyond me. Maybe Daryl had been right – maybe I did have a hero complex. Or maybe I really did have a conscience, after all? I mean, my moral integrity didn’t exactly warrant any awards – what, with all that _murder _and all – but I held myself to at least some semblance of a standard. I’d told Claire, straight to her face, that we had a responsibility to _our _people. I had included her in that statement and the Gods above and below knew I wasn’t about to let her last thoughts be of how much of a hypocrite I was.

Tyreese stepped up to stand beside me, looking at each of our group in turn with an intense gaze. “I agree with Synnove.”

I gave him a delighted smile, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. “I appreciate that, Ty. Now, ya’ll wait here whilst I stealth my way through this side-quest.”

“I’m coming with you,” both Mason and Daryl declared at the same time.

Everyone shared an awkward look as Daryl glared down at Mason and the kid shrunk back a little in embarrassment.

I lifted a hand and began to back toward the building. “I appreciate the sentiment, guys, but I can get in and out a lot easier with just myself to worry about.”

Daryl didn’t look remotely happy about it but met my gaze and nodded, anyway. He might have made a big fuss about it but, at the end of the day, he trusted me to know my own abilities. I gave him a soft smile in thanks before turning around back toward the walker infested building.

#

I hadn’t been kidding when I had said it would be easier for me to sneak through the building alone.

Once I had found a better access point off to the side of the front doors, I had climbed through into one of the dark rooms on the ground floor and begun to make my way toward the stairwell. Sneaking past the group of walkers still tangled in the upended desks I’d thrown earlier was easy. _Too_ easy.

The kind of easy that implied things were about to get irritatingly difficult.

Which was exactly what happened a few seconds later when I attempted to pull open the stairwell door only to find the entire well practically full to the brim with undead. I slammed the door shut perhaps a little too hard before any of the walkers could slip free, leaning my back up against it with a whispered curse.

_That_ was going to make things difficult, wasn’t it?

The sound of shuffling footsteps from around the corner made me look skyward in irritation before I pushed free of the door and drew my blades. Three walkers stumbled into the hallway from the foyer. Two of the wore lab coats that I assumed had once been white, whilst the other wore exactly the kind of getup I’d imagine a lumberjack would wear on a cold day. Flannel coat, jeans, and work boots. Dishevelled hair and thick, congealed trails of blood coating its thick beard.

Honestly, it was a _Look_.

I spun one of my knives in my hand, gripping the blade loosely between my thumb and curved forefinger before flinging it forwards. It twisted in the air before embedding itself in the Cold Lumberjack, who dropped to the floor in such a manner that its outstretched leg tripped one of the lab coat clad walkers shuffling along beside it.

I strolled forward with my other dagger in hand and struck out in a snake-like movement, shoving the blade through the forehead of the walker on my left before pulling it out, twisting the knife in my grip, and repeating the motion to the right.

Once all three walkers lay dead-dead at my feet, I retrieved my other knife, cleaned both blades on the once-white lab coats, and turned back toward the stairwell door with a sigh.

There had to be another way up to the higher levels, right? If there were stairs, there’d have to be an elevator or some form of disability access. As I stood before the stairwell door, I began to scan the walls nearby to see if I could spot a map of some kind.

Though not a map, I did manage to see a grime coated sign hanging from the ceiling that indicated, with a helpful little arrow, there were indeed some elevators nearby.

I followed the sign down a dimly lit corridor, coming to a stop before a pair of silver doors set deep into the blood stained, white wall. Blowing out another sigh, I moved forward and pushed my fingers into the gap between the two doors, wedging them apart far enough for me to get a solid grip on them. Once they were open far enough for me to peer inside, I gave the interior a sceptical once-over.

The timber walls of the elevator were splattered with dried blood, the wedge of light that pieced the darkness within illuminating the crumbled body that lay unceremoniously doubled over in its own lap that sat on the tiled floor.

The thing twitched when the light struck it and I grimaced involuntarily.

Wedging myself in between the two doors, I used my bag and injured foot to push them open as far as possible whilst pulling my knife free of my hip sheath. The slumped body began to roll to the side, gurgling low in its throat as it reached out gnarled hands toward my ankle.

As it lifted its torso, tilting its head to face me, I noticed for the first time that the thing was actually embedded halfway through the floorboards with its upper half being the only thing above ground level.

It wouldn’t be able to reach me and I wouldn’t be able to reach it from my position, either. The thing was too close for a throw strong enough to piece through its skull. I’d need to step closer to it, meaning I’d likely need to let the doors close behind me, which would plunge us into absolute darkness.

Not exactly ideal.

I breathed a sigh through my nose, lifted my free hand and lit a small flame in my palm before stepping away from the door. The darkness encased me, kept at bay only by the small flickering fire in my left hand. It was barely enough to illuminate the outline of the trapped walker in front of me, but thankfully that was all I needed to find the undead creature’s head. Once I had dispatched it, the creature slumped forward once again and I felt the floorboards beneath my feet groaning against the weight. It didn’t particularly like me standing atop it, either, but that was easily fixed.

I shimmied along the edge of the wall until I had made it to the other side of the elevator, where a metal railing extended from the back wall. Lifting myself up so I was sitting on the metal railing, I lifted my flaming hand up to get a good look at the ceiling. It didn’t take long to spot the hatch. And the metal latch that kept it locked shut.

That was going to be a pain.

I’d need to force the hatch open but I’d need a solid foothold in order to do so. The bottom of my foot was already beginning to throb painfully in anticipation what I was about to do. It was going to be a _Task_, that was for sure.

For a brief moment, I tried to force myself to remember that I was going to all this effort for _Claire_ – of all people. The woman who had tried to have me killed, tried to blame me for a murder I didn’t commit, and then tried to kill me herself in front of literally everyone. Why was I doing this? What point did I have to prove here? That I wasn’t as much of a monster as I kept making myself out to be? That I didn’t particularly want to be haunted by Claire’s pissed off ghost because I didn’t at least make an effort to save her?

I lifted myself up onto the metal handrail, balancing with the balls of my feet curled around the metal – owie – and one hand braced against the roof. The darkness had well and truly engulfed me now that I had allowed the flame dancing on my palm to extinguish. With a general approximation of where the hatch was in the pitch darkness, I trust my right fist upward, knuckles striking hard against the ceiling tiles. Giving it a second go, I felt the solid roof give way beneath my fist. The panel popped free, clattering against the metallic outer-casing of the elevator and letting in a stream of natural light from somewhere above.

I pushed the loose hatch further away from the hole and manoeuvred myself to grab onto the edge, using the swing to pull myself up and through.

Staring up at the long shaft above, I let out a long sigh. Elevator wire stretched down from the roof on either side of me, vibrating with each step I took as the elevator shook beneath me. From previous experience, I knew the wire constructed to hold up elevators was actually made from dozens of smaller wires and was not in any way, shape, or form easy to climb. No matter what the movies made you think, that shit would slice up your hands like nobody’s business.

I reached down and slowly pulled a knife free, slicing up a large chunk of my shirt before halving it into strips. The cold air within the shaft brushed against my exposed midriff as I tied the fabric strips around my palms and through the gaps in my fingers until I was happy satisfied my skin would be protected from the wire.

After flexing my hands, and giving my shoulders a good roll, I leapt up from the metal beneath my feet and gripped the wire with both hands. Slowly, I began to climb, pulling myself up bit by bit, putting one hand above the other and keeping my booted feet curled around the wire below to take some of the stress from my arm and shoulder muscles.

After what felt like an hour, I looked up to see how far I had left to climb to reach the slightly ajar doors of the third floor, and spat out a curse when I realised I was barely even halfway.

“_The things I do for moral superiority_,” I hissed to myself, gritting my teeth as I continued to pull my body weight up the thick coil of wire. “_I swear, if she calls me a murderous bitch one more gods-damned time after this, I might just throw her from the prison roof._” I grunted as the fabric protecting the skin of my palm from the sharp wire began to fray and slip free. “_You yeet that bitch, Synnove le Jacques. No more chances after this bullshit. She gives you even an iota of difficulties after this…_” Another effortful grunt. “_You give that bitch a straight yeetin’_.”

Finally, _finally _I reached the third story. As I clung to the wire, looking slightly downward at the ajar pair of silver doors, I took in a long breath to prepare myself before swinging free of the wire. The tips of my booted feet came to rest on the thin strip of threshold on the inside of the doors, my hands reaching out to slap against the cold strip of wall on either of me. I pushed against the solid concrete with my palms, my weight on my toes as I waited to gain balance.

Once I was comfortable with my stance, I lifted my head, my nose close enough to the silver doors to feel the chill of the metal. The small gap was barely wide enough for me to wedge the tip of my big toe in, but I managed, forcing it further and further until I’d wedged my whole foot in there.

Taking in a deep breath, I focused on my balance as I removed one of my hands from the support of the wall to reach in through the gap between the two doors. Once I had a solid grip one side, I moved my other hand from the wall and pushed that between, bracing the insides of both forearms against the edges of the silver doors and beginning to push.

Once the gap was wide enough, I slid through and onto the solid linoleum of the third story’s floor. Bracing my elbows against my thighs, I let myself breathe for a brief moment, flexing my fingers as I slowly peeled the strips of shirt free. The skin of my left palm was rubbed a little raw but nothing too serious. I let out a thankful sigh before turning my head to the side as a new sound registered in my brain.

A horde of walkers were standing a few steps away from me.

They were too busy clawing at the door I guessed Claire had barricaded herself behind to notice me, thank the Mother, but they were still _much _too close for comfort. Slowly, I stepped back a few paces until I could slide around the corner and out of sight.

Once there, I leant back against the cool wall and looked skyward again.

There had to be a way to clear the hall without getting myself into shit.

I peaked around the corner at the small horde of walkers choking the hallway and tried to take a silent count of them. Twenty. At least.

Could I do twenty? Maybe.

I hesitated to use much more magic. The curling branded symbol burned into my shoulder was beginning to notably tingle as it started to activate. I knew what would happen if I continued to push it; the burn, followed by the seeping blood. Using more beyond that would result in a cascade of blood pouring down my arm and chest as the magic within the brand burrowed deep within my very core and began to strangle my life force with cold, invisible hands.

Twenty walkers vs one Branded, Exiled Faerie. Who would _you_ bet on?

The correct answer is me, of course. In case you were wondering.

The idea came to me after I had ducked back behind the corner and my gaze had caught a scrap of metal coated in dried blood. I crossed the small distance and picked it up, inspecting it with a pursed lipped look of contemplation.

Once I was fully prepared, I slipped back around the corner and slunk over toward the elevator doors. The wedge I had slipped through was still open, so I slipped back between them and pushed my back against one side, using my uninjured foot to push the other.

It wasn’t a silent endeavour. The doors made an ungodly squealing sound as I forced them completely open, but that had been expected on my part. Heads turned in my direction, dead eyes staring at me in ceaseless hunger. They begun to shuffle forward, away from the locked door of the classroom and toward me. I prepared my haphazard invention of sharp metal, blind string, and bloody bandage, angling myself outside the elevator doors. With a deft hand, I hooked the metal around the elevator wire, tying it off with the blind string before giving it a good swing and darting back behind the corner.

The metal clanged against the elevator shaft’s concrete wall, sending an echoing sound throughout the entire building. That, combined with the smell of my bloody bandage, sent the walkers proverbially _nuts_.

Idiots that they are, each and every one of them was sent tumbling through the open elevator doors. I peaked around the corner to watch the show as the undead morons practically lined up for their own doom. They were crawling over one another in an attempt to push to the front of the queue, only to find their reward was a nice thirty-five-foot drop onto solid metal.

I knew the first few would have had their brains blown out upon impact, but the more that took the dive, the less likely it was that the fall was going to kill them as the bodies beneath acted as a cushion.

Not that it mattered, of course. They were well and truly out of my way, now. It barely even took two minutes to clear the entire corridor.

I walked over to the elevator and peered down over the edge, down the dimly lit shaft. There were a few walkers still groaning and moaning down at the base, but most had splattered upon the metal roof of the elevator itself, their partially rotted bones too brittle to handle the impact.

“Nice one, Synnove,” I remarked to myself with a self-congratulatory nod.

Once I was done with patting myself on the back, I made my way down the slick linoleum floor of the hall toward the door I was about ninety-percent sure Claire was stuck behind.

I knocked shave-and-a-haircut on the solid wood and waited, listening.

There were sounds coming from the other side. Slight, but definitely there. A soft sound, like quiet, panicked breathing.

“Clairy-fairy?” I whispered musically. “Did I ever tell you that story about the princess that battles the undead dragon to rescue the wicked witch from her tower?” I felt my eyes widen slightly in realisation and I looked to the floor, pursing my lips in a thoughtful, bemused grin. “Actually, I’d read the shit outta that. Remind me to write that down.”

There was a shuffle on the other side of the door, hesitant footsteps against linoleum. After a silent moment, the handle of the door slowly sunk down and the latch clicked. The door creaked open a crack and Claire’s wide eyes peered through the opening at me distrustfully.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“What? _No_,” I responded, cringing slightly as I realised I sounded almost exactly like that one shitty line Mark Wahlberg delivered in _The Happening_. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “I’m not going to hurt you. Right now, anyway. In this current situation.”

She lifted a doubtful brow and gave me a pursed frown. “You said you’d kill me if I got in the way again.”

“I meant that more in the regard of us being delayed as a result of you being a wanker,” I responded, straightening as I crossed my arms over my chest. “This was hardly your fault. Shit just happens.”

It took her a long moment, but after she gave me a slow once over, she stepped back slightly and pulled the door fully open. Inside was what looked like an operating room; a wheeled gurney, a stainless steel table in the centre, and a bench top that looked to be home to a series of medical tools. Beneath the bench itself were tubs full of what looked like rolled up blue towels.

“Did you get rid of all the walkers?” Claire asked me in a timid voice.

I nodded, giving her a wide, proud grin. “Never say I don’t get shit done.”

She snorted something that almost sounded like a laugh.

After that, an awkward silence stretched out between us as we looked at one another. She stilled seemed tense and guarded, as if she expected me to cut her down at any given moment. I wasn’t entirely happy about the thought of turning my back on her, either, but one of us had to be the adult here, so I stepped back away from the door and nodded at her to join me in the hall.

A slight hesitation.

“My God, Claire,” I scoffed. “I’m not going to kill you. Believe it or not, I do have some semblance of tact.”

Claire’s gaze narrowed slightly up at me before she took a large, confident step out, into the hall. Her chin jutted forward, and she looked down the length of her thin nose at me. “Happy?”

I gave her a tight-lipped smile and turned back toward the elevator, trying not to voice the passing thought that the thirty-foot drop passed those open doors had the capability of making me _much _happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. A long one, wasn't it? I hope it didn't bore you!  
In fact, I hope you enjoyed it :)   
Thanks again for tuning in. I hope everyone is doing well.   
As always, please don't hesitate to leave a comment if you like - or didn't, I can take criticism - the chapter. 
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always  
Faerie Huntress xx


	38. The Hum of the Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Synnove and Claire are stranded on the third floor of the building, with only a buck-wild, macgyver-esque plan dancing in the back of our favourite faerie's mind.

“You didn’t think that through at all, did you?”

I peered down into the darkness of the elevator shaft, at the pile of dead-dead bodies at the base of it. The sound of groaning echoed, bouncing against the concrete walls encasing them. “I thought it’d be cool, alright?”

Claire gave me the pursed lip look of a disappointed politician. “Cool doesn’t get us out of here.”

I gestured down to the writhing mass of bodies. “I could probably jump down there and kill the not-dead ones.”

“Without getting bitten?”

I lifted a hand, flattened it out and tipped it side-to-side to indicate the chances were about 50-50.

She scoffed again. “No. Absolutely not.”

I opened my mouth to make a joke about her secretly caring about me, but she snapped another line before I could get a word out.

“I can’t have you dying and leaving me stranded up here again. Have you tried the stairs?”

I let out a breath through my nose, straightening and stepping away from the elevator. “You know that song _Stairway to Heaven_? We here have the Stairway to Hell.”

“You can just say it’s not an option.” Claire gave me a pointed look.

“Why would I do that when being a sassy bitch is just so much more fun?” I remarked with a wide grin.

She just scoffed once again and turned away from me.

I watched her from the corner of my eye for a moment before my gaze locked on the window at the end of the hall. It led to the front courtyard where the others were waiting. Claire had been hitting that glass in the classroom pretty damn hard when she’d been trying to get our attention. That, along with the fact that it was a university and the way the pane bent the light, led me to believe it was likely Safety Glass. I’d need something with a lot of force but a small surface area to break it. Something like a hammer.

I spun on my heel and made my way back to the room Claire had barricaded herself within and began to scope through the bench of medical tools I’d spotted earlier. My hope faded rather quickly when I realized the instruments were all light and compact. They’d be useless against safety glass. No, I needed something sturdy. Something manoeuvrable.

My gaze slid across to the gurney.

An idea began to form in my mind.

A very stupid one. But, maybe… just stupid enough to work.

#

“I cannot believe you think this is going to work,” Claire sighed as she halfheartedly gripped the right side of the gurney whilst I fastened the straps at the end of the solid top.

“Have a little faith,” I breathed, crouching down at the front of the gurney and flicking the tip of my dagger to ensure it was held tightly in place. Taking a step back, I admired my handiwork with a grin. I had fixed my knife to the front of the gurney, holding it in place with a series of straps tied to the portable bed’s metal legs. Looking to my companion, I gestured at my work of art with a grin. “Behold, a gurney-corn.”

“You should have left me here to die,” Claire sighed.

I snorted and moved to stand beside her at the back of the gurney. “Cynicism is the death of imagination, Clairy-fairy.” Gripping onto the gurney’s handle, I turned my head to give the woman beside me a mad grin. “You ready to be proven wrong?”

She shook her head with a sigh but stepped out of my way, nonetheless. “If you break that glass with this horrifying abomination, I will get down on my knees and formally apologise for everything I have ever even thought of doing to you.”

My grip on the gurney tightened as I turned back to face the hallway before me, adjusting myself in preparation for take-off. “I’m definitely holding you to that.”

I had faith in my contraption. Safety glass was strong but it had a tendency to shatter when pressure was applied to a small area. The tip of my dagger would act as the point of impact and the combined weight of me and the gurney would be the strength. I was confident. Ish.

Taking in a deep breath, I started my run. Getting up speed in such a short distance was one of the only factors I’d been concerned about, but I managed to make it almost to a full sprint before hitting the line I’d marked on the floor that acted as my queue to let go. Using all the supernatural strength I could muster, I pushed, sending the gurney sailing forwards as I skidded to a halt. It’s wheels were barely even touching the linoleum floor, it was moving that fast.

The contraption passed right through the glass as if it were breaking through the surface of water. A loud shattering sound echoed through the halls of the building as the gurney sailed through the outside air and crashed to the grassy courtyard below with a sound of finality.

I turned around to give Claire and admittedly over-dramatic bow.

She just stared with wide eyes at the shattered window, watching as a chip of glass fell from the edge of the surviving pane to the metal sill at its the base.

I walked up to the open area and looked out to where the car still sat on the edge of the road by the entry gate. Everyone was standing, looking up at us with matching looks of shock on their faces. I waved at them.

Mason was the only one that waved back, unabashed in his vigour.

Daryl’s perplexed expression relaxed into a look of relief as he shielded his eyes from the sun, looking up at us from his place beside the car. He lowered himself down, bracing his forearms against his thighs as he seemingly took in a few long breaths before straightening again.

I chuckled. There was just something satisfying about making that man nervous. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what, but it sent a warm feeling through my lower stomach.

“Great,” Claire breathed as she came to stand beside me, leaning slightly over to look at the ground below us. “Now what, genius?”

“I believe now is the time you drop to your knees, Clairy-Fairy,” I remarked with a smirk.

She scoffed, backing away from the window as she rolled her eyes.

My gaze turned back down to the ground below us. We were on the third floor, but it was lower to the ground here than on the other side of the building. Directly beneath us was a concrete pathway with a raised garden bed running alongside it, encased in timber edging. From the edge of that garden was the lawn that stretched across to the perimeter gate. 

Had I been alone, I wouldn’t have even hesitated to make the jump. It was about thirty feet, sure, but I was;

A – a highly trained assassin.  
And B – not human.

Humans struggled with a damn _ten_-foot drop.

I’d thought of this already, of course. I wasn’t a complete moron. Breaking the window would have been pointless had I not figured out how we were going to get down from it.

I turned back toward the room the gurney had originated from. When I reemerged a few moments later carrying the large tub of what were indeed towels, Claire gave me a bewildered look.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

I began to tie the towels together with a water knot, the irony of which made me snort a low chuckle.

“This is funny to you now?” Claire asked.

Continuing my knot out of muscle memory alone, I looked up at her with a blank expression. “Hey, Claire. You mind rolling back the bitch, there, darling?”

She opened her mouth though seemed to rethink whatever she’d been about to say as she put her hands on her hips, leant back slightly, and took in a deep breath. “Okay.”

I tried not to let the shock of that kill my ass on the spot.

It took me a total of twenty minutes to tie together a comfortable amount of towels before I began to make my way back toward the shattered window.

Deep within the building, I could hear the reverberating sounds of excited walkers, scraping against the stairwell door and clawing at the metal doors of the elevator at the bottom of the shaft. It was an eerie sound, only adding to Claire’s overall unease at the whole situation as she stood beside me, looking down at the drop below.

“Are you sure they’re strong enough?” she asked, her voice higher than usual, and a little shaky.

I gave her a wry smile. “Strong as your ego.”

She must really have been frightened because the look she gave me didn’t hold even an ounce of animosity. Her eyes were wider than usual, lines extending from their corners to the edge of her hairline. Thin brows were pulled down taut, creasing her pale forehead.

For some unfathomable reason, I felt a pang of sympathy. “You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”

When she looked back at me, it was almost comical how hard she was trying to hide her fear beneath her glare. Her jaw was clenched tightly, brows still tilted upwards in the centre whilst her lips were pressed together so tightly together, they had practically disappeared.

My original plan had been to hold the towel-rope whilst she climbed down and then either find somewhere to tie them off or to just make the jump. Now, however, I knew that was going to need to change. She wasn’t going to be able to climb down on her own.

I spat out a curse before heading back into the room from earlier. Without a word, I began to drag the operating table halfway out of the room, opening the door across the hall and wedging the damn thing between the two door frames. Once I was comfortable it was steadily in place, I tied the towel-rope around one leg, wrapped it around the other, and began to lead it down to the broken window.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” I stated, meeting Claire’s gaze with a serious look. “You’re going to hope on my back like a koala and I am going to handle the climbing, okay?”

Claire shook her head. “I – I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” I said, reaching out with one hand to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “All you gotta do is hold on tight. You can just pretend you’re strangling me, okay?”

Her lips stretched slightly into a contorted smile as her fear fought back against the chocked laugh that escaped her.

“You can do that, right?” I asked in a bemused tone.

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay. Good.” I gave her a steely nod before wrapping the towel-rope around my waist. I gave a flirty grin over my shoulder. “Jump on.”

Claire didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, surprisingly, she did as she was told, leaping up onto my back and wrapping her arms and legs around me tightly. I was somewhat thankful that she was little more than a wraith of a woman. She was almost half my weight, which was going to make this a whole lot easier on my arms.

I started slowly, easing down over the edge, feeling Claire’s grip tighten as her back was exposed to open air. Thankfully, her arms were linked against my collarbones instead of my throat. With how hard she was squeezing, she may well have choked me out had that been the case.

The towels held our weight as I began to abseil down the outside of the building, cautiously stepping over the second story window and trying to ignore the vibrations against the glass as the walkers inside beat against the pane. Claire buried her face in the curve between my shoulder and neck. She was muttering something to herself, an incoherent prayer as we slowly descended.

I heard footsteps behind me as we grew lower to the ground and before I knew it, Claire was being pried from my back by Tyreese, who was whispering reassurances to her as he lowered her to the ground.

Daryl appeared by my side, hands reaching out to grasp my waist as he helped me turn my feet from the wall and back to the hard ground of the concrete path. I unwound the towels from around me and went to roll my shoulders but, before I could, Daryl pulled me in to a tight hug.

A small sound escaped me, somewhere between a startled laugh and the whistling of a crushed wind-pipe as he squeezed me, his grip almost tighter than Claire’s had been mere moment ago.

“Let a girl breathe, man,” Tyreese remarked as he began to lead Claire back down toward the turn of the path, hands gently on her shoulders. The woman was still shaking.

I rubbed a hand down the hard line of his back before pulling slightly away to give him a cocky grin. “Do I need to say it?”

He let out a breathless chuckle as he stepped back, letting his hands run across my back and over my shoulders before falling to his sides. “What, I told you so? Nah. I had faith.”

I snorted, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and walked past him back toward the car. “Sure you did, Little Dixon. Sure you did.”

#

Michonne took the driver’s seat this time around, and I climbed on Daryl’s lap in the passenger seat to avoid the ordeal of being strapped to the rooftop of the car. Behind us, the three boys sat on the back seat, while Phee and Claire sat atop them. Amusingly, Claire seemed to be almost happy sitting on Tyreese’s lap this time around, still partially clinging to him as if the adrenaline of the climb had yet to completely dissipate.

My legs were draped sideways over his, so I was leaning back against the window, facing Michonne as she drove. I was pretty comfortable where I was, and my added weight didn’t seem to bother Daryl at all. He had one arm resting along the door rest behind my back and the other draped casually over my thighs, his eyes straight ahead. The car was relatively silent, bar the static sounds coming from the speakers beside the passenger and driver’s seat.

That sound was enough to trigger a memory in Mason so violently, the kid launched himself forward, latching onto the back of Michonne’s seat and sending Phee lurching sideways, into Claire – who surprisingly didn’t cuss either of them out.

“The radio!”

Daryl tried to turn to look at him without upending me, settling instead on straining his neck and glaring whilst I peered around him at Mason with a cocked brow.

“Good boy! Now what’s this called?” I remarked in a rather condescending manner as I pointed to the steering wheel.

Mason gave me a flat look before gesturing back to the radio. “You guys heard the voice, too, right? Yesterday, before we got swarmed?”

The memory resurfaced with a snap and I sat up straighter, drawing a grunt of pain from Daryl as I shifted across a rather sensitive part of him. I shot him a half-hearted apology, moving a little down his leg, focusing my attention back on Mason. “Shit, yeah. The creepy radio voice.”

The car went silent for a moment as we all shared a look.

“Think it’s something to look into?” Phee asked, peering over Daryl’s shoulder at me.

I pursed my lips in thought. My initial thoughts on the voice had been about the way he’d sounded at home, comfortable. But I remembered noting the somewhat tense way he’d clipped his words and being set ill-at-ease by the underlying… oddness to his voice. With a deep breath through my nose, I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

Mason pouted like a child being told he wasn’t going to get that shiny red toy car for Christmas. “Why not? It could be another community.”

“It probably is,” I answered with a single shouldered shrug.

“Could be more than that,” Michonne said, her jaw set harshly. “The closest radio tower’s only twenty miles from the prison.”

“They could be anywhere from fifty to two hundred miles away, Mich.” I frowned, giving her a thorough once over.

Her shoulders were pulled flush against the back of the seat, her grip on the wheel tightening to the point of creaking leather. We’d slowly been gaining speed over the last few minutes as she pushed further and further down on the gas pedal, likely without even realising. Creases formed at the corners of her eyes as she narrowed them, glaring out the window as if she could see something we could not.

I pursed my lips. “You think it’s Him, don’t you?”

Daryl tensed beneath me. Michonne didn’t give a comment in response, merely readjusted her grip on the wheel, allowing it to loosen slightly.

“The Governor?” Tyreese asked.

Claire scoffed. “That man wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes out there without his pretty bodyguard by his side.”

“_Hey_.”

She shrugged a shoulder, not meeting my gaze over Daryl’s shoulder. “What? At least I called you pretty.”

“Gee. How generous. Anyone told you you’ve really grown as a person lately?”

“As has your body count, if I’m not mistaken.”

I took a long breath, opening my mouth and readying to let loose my spiciest verbal slapping yet, when I felt Daryl’s hand press against the side of my thigh. Glancing down, I found him giving me a pointed look, and I sunk back against the door with a pout.

The rest of the drive passed by somewhat uneventfully, if you don’t consider Michonne driving like how you’d imagine a barely oiled up Tin-man may have driven as something “eventful”.

We arrived home around midday. Michonne pulled the car up the dirt road and through the courtyard gate as it was pulled open by Maggie and Rick.

I climbed out of the car with a grin, hoisting the bag of meds over my head like I was some ancient barbarian holding the head of my enemy.

“Victory!” I announced proudly as Maggie approached me, giving me a sad but rueful smile. “How is everyone?”

She nodded, lowering her gaze as she took the bag from me and not meeting it again before she turned in place. Something about her posture was off, still and reserved, as if she were purposefully not speaking to avoid sharing a secret I wasn’t supposed to know.

My grin faded and I glanced toward Rick, who stood sullenly off to the side. When our eyes met, he jerked his head to the side, indicating that he wanted to speak with me in private.

I glanced down at the others as they climbed out of the car, catching Daryl’s curious and oddly narrowed gaze as he looked between Rick and I. My tight smile did nothing to ease the sudden tenseness to his shoulders as I turned around to follow the Sheriff into the fields.

We walked in silence through the gate, strolling down the dirt pathway toward the flattened grass where the pigpen had once been. It wasn’t until we reached the inner perimeter gate that Rick reached out to touch my upper arm, bringing me to a stop. I looked up at him, frowning, noting the tight lines at the corners of his lips and the grieving notes of his lowered eyes.

I felt something begin to constrict in my chest as I took a slight step closer to him, until our shoulders were almost touching, and inclined my head to catch his gaze. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

He looked at me, frown tightening. “I need you to know first,” Rick breathed before letting out a sigh and straightening. The hand that had been gently gripping my upper arm slowly released its hold, moving to rest on his slim hip as he stared out into the forest beyond the fence. “It was Carol.”

I blinked, brows furrowing for a moment until the realisation of what he was saying struck me and I found myself taking a large step away from him. My gaze hardened and I eyed him with a pointed look. “What did you do?”

He took in a long breath through his nose and turned fully to me. “I took her to one of the towns out west,” he explained.

“And?” I held my breath.

“And I… I left her there.”

The air I had been holding in came out in a hissed curse. I lowered myself into a partial crouch, hands braced against my thighs as a million thoughts ran through my head at once. Carol had been the one to kill Karen. Carol. Who had smelt like fucking _gasoline_ the day before. Carol, who had smelt like gasoline the day before, that I had let pass me by because I’d been too busy dealing with that _fucking little goblin-shit_.

I felt anger beginning bubbling its way to the surface, the grief of losing yet another friend because of her own stupid actions swirling around in the pit of my stomach, making me feel sick. A sudden sharp sensation piece through my heart as I twisted my head to look up at Rick. “What are you going to tell Daryl?”

Rick swallowed, brows pulling down over his sad eyes as he peered down at me. “I was… I was hoping you’d help me with that.”

I straightened so fast, the blood boiling in my veins went straight to my head and I felt slightly dizzy. “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me.”

“It’d be better coming from you and you know it,” Rick argued.

I just stared at him a moment, shaking my head.

“You understand why –“

“Yes,” I snapped, clenching my jaw tightly to avoid making another unfriendly comment, looking out to the forest with narrowed eyes.

Carol was family to Daryl. Their friendship was different than what he and I had, but it was just as strong – if not stronger. He held her close to his heart and this news would hurt him. Hurt him more than I was even really willing to admit to myself.

My anger simmered down, replaced by a hollow sense of sorrow and almost an almost numb trepidation. I turned back to Rick with a miserable frown and shook my head. “I can’t, Rick.”

He let out a breath through his nose, disappointed but understanding.

“I just… I can’t.” I can’t be the one to hurt him.

He nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell him. But you gotta be there. You’re the only one that can calm him down.”

I gave him a curt nod of agreement and began to turn away from the fence, resigned to what was about to happen, when Rick’s hand reached out again to touch my shoulder.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know you probably don’t like me right now, but I appreciate –“

“I get it, Rick,” I breathed, allowing myself to look back at him. “I understand why you did what you did, but just because I understand doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. Or that I approve of it.” My gaze was soft despite the hardness of my words as I gazed up at those crystalline eyes of his, frowning. “You established a council to make these choices, Rick, and then you distanced yourself from it. And now, suddenly, you make this _big_ decision without consulting even _one_ of us?”

“You weren’t he–“

“Then you wait,” I cut in. “You wait to ask me. You _wait_ to ask Daryl. Or Michonne, or Hershel. I trust you, Rick, I do, and I’d be happy to follow you, but don’t pretend to give us power only to undermine it every time you think you know better.”

His gaze was fixed on the floor by his booted feet, forehead creasing as I spoke. He nodded along with my words, the corners of his mouth twitching downwards.

“When we put Claire on the fence for trying to kill me, we set a precedent for punishment. I understand that you thought getting Carol out of here was as much about saving her as it was condemning her, but Daryl isn’t going to see that. What he is going to see is you tearing his closest friend from him, when the woman that tried to _murder _his other friend is spending her nights sleeping safely within the walls alongside the rest of us.”

“I didn’t want either of you having to make that choice,” he breathed, still unable to meet my gaze.

I gave him a pointed look. “_You_ were the one that wanted me on that council because you _knew_ I had the capacity to make those decisions. We all do. That’s why we’re the ones in charge. The ones you _wanted_ in charge, whilst you took your little sabbatical and grew your Farmer Rick beard.” A soft sigh escaped me as I tried to reign in my rising anger. “Look. You deserved a break; I’m not saying stepping back was wrong of you. All I’m saying is that… You have to make a choice on whether or not the council’s power is subordinate to yours, or if it’s the other way around.”

He met my gaze then, bright eyes misted with guilt, lips pressed firmly together as he gave me a nod of acknowledgement. I took a small step forwards and lightly touched the hard line of his upper arm.

“You are a good man, Rick. I still believe that. If you made the choice to lead, I would follow you to Hell and back. All you’d need to do is ask. But if that isn’t what you want, you need to back off. I’ve accepted my fate in baring the hard choices, we all have. You think choosing not to throw Claire out into the fucking wilderness was an easy decision for me? It wasn’t. But it was the right one. One I wouldn’t have even thought to consider if it hadn’t been for the other council members. Because that is how it works, Rick. We all have different opinions – different life experiences that have taught us lessons that others don’t know. Different ideologies on community and morality and legality. On what’s right and wrong. We make decision together so we can put the _best_ of our collective knowledge and experience to use.”

“I know,” he breathed after a moment, his voice emotionally hoarse. “You’re right. But I’ve done what I’ve done.”

“And you’ve hurt people in the process,” I said plainly, taking my hand from his arm as if it had caught fire. “You’ve hurt Daryl.”

A long pause of tense silence passed between us, during which I stared evenly up at him until I saw the guilt manifest in his gaze, spilling over into a deep regret that made his lower lip quiver slightly.

Once I was happy he had well and truly gotten a firm grasp on what the repercussions of his actions were going to be, I turned on my heel and began to make my way to D-Block, with Rick trailing behind on my heels.

#

“I want it noted that I am doing this for him, not for you,” I announced as Rick and I walked through the metallic door that lead to the inner common area of the cell block.

“I know,” was Rick’s croaked response.

We made our way across to where Daryl was sitting by one of the round tables, speaking with Beth as she cradled Judith. When she spotted us, her back straightened slightly, drawing Daryl’s attention to our presence. He spun around to face us, catching the look on my face before anything else, and sliding free of the seat so fast he almost upended the entire thing.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, glancing across to Rick, who gestured for Daryl to follow him into the celled hall. Without a word, he began to walk toward it, and Daryl followed without question.

I trailed behind them, waiting until they had reached the top step of the mezzanine before even beginning to climb. The whole atmosphere of the room shifted, almost choking me with its thickness. My chest gave a painful squeeze when I reached the platform, moving to lean against the opposite railing, positioning myself between Rick and Daryl before their conversation had even begun.

It was obvious Rick was dreading this as much as I was. His hands were shaking.

“While you were gone, I…” He cleared his throat. “I dug into what happened with Karen and David.”

Daryl nodded, lips pursing at the mention of it. “You find out who did it?”

Rick glanced at me before he gave a nod.

A moment of silence stretched out before Daryl was forced to ask, somewhat impatiently, “_Who_?”

“I took her out to one of the towns out west, okay? Left her with a car, supplies –“

Daryl’s gaze slid to me in confusion before he focused back on Rick. I could see the moment things began to piece themselves together in the shifting of his body language. He drew his shoulders back, began to step back and forth, hands twitching as he grew restless for confirmation.

“_Who_?” he repeated, stepping up so close to Rick, their noses almost touched.

I didn’t make a move to pull him back. Not yet. Let him get some righteous anger out first.

“Carol,” Rick whispered, gaze having dropped, fixating on the hollow of Daryl’s throat. “I didn’t know what else to do, I –“

Daryl threw up a hand and turned his back on Rick, stalking across to the wall before turning back around, thrusting a finger in the old sheriff’s face, the anger radiating off him almost palpable. “Man, you couldn’t have waiting till we got back?” he hissed.

“Until Tyreese got back?” Rick threw in.

I let out a sigh through my nose. Honestly, that was the only reason I, myself, wasn’t kicking Rick’s ass for this bullshit. Tyreese could have done something he’d eventually regret had he found out the truth in the state he was in right now. 

“I could’a handled it,” Daryl spat back, venomously. He’d begun pacing now, turning only to directly address Rick when speaking. After a moment, Daryl corrected himself, flinging a hand in my direction as he said, “_We_ could’a handled in.”

He kept pacing, his muscles taut, lips pressed tightly together. I could see the hurt in his gaze, barely visible beneath the anger it had set alight.

Rick tried to step up to him, putting up his hands as if he were going to try and stop Daryl’s movements. “Hey, hey. She _killed_ two of our own. She couldn’t be here.”

Daryl dodged him, continuing in his pacing. I knew he was just trying to stop himself from letting his anger loose on Rick, trying to shake the anger free through constant movement. Stopping him now without giving him means to calm down, or another outlet, wouldn’t end well for any of us. Least of all him.

“She’s got a car, supplies, weapons. She’s a survivor, she –“

Daryl moved so suddenly; I almost didn’t even have time to react. He launched himself toward Rick, but I stepped between them just in time, catching his arm with a tight grip before its clenched fist could collide with Rick’s pretty face.

“Stop saying that shit like you don’t believe it!” he called over my shoulder at Rick.

Having halted his momentum slightly, I slid further between them, reaching out to grab his other shoulder and forcing him to meet my gaze. I gave him a concerned, soft look as I gently said, “Hey. You have to calm down.” 

“Calm down?” he hissed, but he didn’t move away.

The hand that had snatched his upper arm slid upwards, slowly and purposefully over his hard muscle, until it came to rest on his shoulder, where my thumb pressed against the hollow of his collarbone. “Listen to me, okay? I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, but Rick did what he thought –“

“Don’t you defend him,” Daryl snapped, pulling away, slightly enough that my hands slipped down to rest against his chest. “Not you.”

I blinked up at him, somewhat taken aback by his words. Beneath my palms, I could almost feel the vibration of his anger against my skin.

“She did it,” Rick whispered, though his words did not draw Daryl’s eyes from mine.

He looked down at me, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he listened to Rick speak. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he struggled to control his angered breaths, though I could feel it slowing the longer he and I stood facing one another. My own gaze implored him to quell his anger for a moment, to not lash out in a way he would regret later. We all needed to talk this through, to figure out a better way to fix the situation, not fight over it.

“She said it was for us – that’s how it was in her head. She wasn’t sorry,” Rick continued.

I squeezed my eyes shut on that last note, taking in a long breath through my nose. Daryl’s hands came up to gently remove mine from his chest, though he kept hold of my wrists for a long moment as he, too, took in a long breath. Once he had blown it out in a slow sigh, he let go of my arms, and shook his head at Rick.

“Man, that’s her, but that ain’t her,” he said.

“It’s more her than you’d think,” I said softly, opening my eyes again.

He gave me a furrowed brow look of confusion.

“I told you. People are capable of a lot of heinous shit when they think they’re doing it for the right reasons.” I was pissed at her for her actions, but she had been my friend, too, and I held to the thought that she had done it with the intent to protect us, as vein of an attempt as it had been.

“What’re we gonna do ‘bout the girls?” Daryl asked in a breathless voice.

“I told her we’d look after them,” Rick said.

There was a long pause before I turned to look at Rick. “And Tyreese?”

Daryl stiffened behind me slightly.

“I don’t know how he’ll take it.”

My intuition told me the answer to that question was an obvious, “Not well.”

“Let’s go find out,” Daryl said, and began to step around me with a purposeful stride.

#

We found Tyreese in the lower level of the prison, amongst the machinery. He was staring intently at something by the back door, almost jumping out of his skin when Daryl announced our presence.

“Hey, man. Listen –“

He recovered from his slight surprise quickly, turning to face us with wide eyes as he gestured to something behind him. “You guys gotta see this.”

“Can we take a beat?” Daryl asked, lifting up a hand to gesture that he slow down. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“It can wait,” Ty said.

Daryl and I shared a look. He had calmed down some since leaving the celled hall of C-Block, yet I could still see that sadness lingering at the back of his gaze, could see the anger in the tense way he held his shoulders.

“Come see this,” Ty continued, waving us over toward the door behind the generator.

We all followed behind him, our gazes following his pointed finger toward what looked to be two-or-three mutilated rats lying against the thin skirting at the base of the wall.

“Gross,” I remarked plainly as Daryl whispered, “The hell?”

“I was just looking for… answers…” Ty breathed, looking between us and the rat corpses with wild eyes. “And I found this. Same person that killed Karen and David did this. Remember the rats at the fence? They showed up the same day she was killed.”

The glasithinn had also showed up roughly around the same time, too. Which was… suspicious. However, I unfortunately could not… really mention that without a plethora of other questions being raised.

Rick’s frown tightened as he took a step forward, opening his mouth to say something when Tyreese continued, speaking almost feverishly.

“We got a psychopath living with us.”

“_Not anymore_,” I whispered to myself, looking toward Rick and gesturing for him to get it goddamn over with already. Daryl tensed with those words and I reached out to touch his forearm in silent apology for being so brash.

“Tyreese,” Rick stated in a clear voice.

“We got to find him, Rick,” Ty continued, as if he were truly unaware of Rick’s attempts to speak. “And I’m not gonna sleep until we do.”

Finally, Rick got a word in. “Whoever did this,” he said, gesturing down to the bloodied mush that had once been a family of rats. “I don’t think that’s who killed Karen.”

Tyreese’s face slackened suddenly before his gaze narrowed down at Rick. He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t catch it.

Something else caught my attention. It was a sensation, cold and alarming, running down the back of my neck so violently I actually jerked upright. What _was_ that? A sound? I could hear a low thrum, like a loud machine vibrating heavily in the distance. But I was currently _in _a room _full _of machines, so it surely couldn’t be that?

The sensation was distressing. Like a warning whispered in the depths of my consciousness. A sense of horrifying off-ness. An unsettling quality in the air.

I was so alarmed by it that I actually opened my mouth to warn the others, something I wouldn’t usually do, as it was difficult to explain that kind of sixth sense away as anything other than supernatural. “Guys, there’s something… _very_ wrong.”

“No shit,” Tyreese remarked, gesturing yet again to the mutilated rats. “We’re living with goddamn Buffalo Bill.”

“No,” I responded, not looking at any of them, my eyes drawn to the window by the southern wall. They were wide, searching, as if I’d somehow be able to spot the origins of the odd sensation with my eyes alone. “It’s not that.”

Daryl took a concerned step toward me, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

Before he could make contact, the sensation running through me spiked into a horrible, violent sound of warning that echoed through the back of my head.

“Get down!” I screamed, grabbing Daryl’s arm and yanking him toward the ground.

A loud bang came from outside, shocking both Tyreese and Rick into a crouch. It was quickly followed by a resounding explosion that shook the entire prison cell with its intensity. Concrete and brick rained down outside the barred window, shaking free powered debris from the ceiling above us.

“What the fuck was that?” Tyreese shouted.

“Nothing fucking good!” I responded, rising back up to my full height, letting go of Daryl’s arm. Without another word, I spun on my heel and began to make my way back up to the ground level.

The others were hot on my tail, following behind as I climbed the stairs to the exterior door of the cell block, bursting out into the courtyard beyond like a cauldron of bats, fresh out of Hell.

Although, it seemed we were actually bursting _into_ Hell instead of _out_ of it.

I could see the crowd of people gathered outside the gates, see from their stances alone that they were well armed and not friendly. My heart sunk in my chest as I made my way down, along the fence line until I found the pallet closest to the gate, sinking down behind it with Daryl doing the same beside me.

I pressed myself as low as I could behind the plywood resting up against the fence, knowing it would likely do jack-shit if someone decided to take a shot at it. Maggie appeared a few seconds later, sprinting across the courtyard with a sniper in one hand, a rifle in the other. She tossed me the sniper as she stood beside the other edge of the plywood, beside Daryl.

I checked the sniper was loaded, chambered a round, and lifted myself up into a half-crouch, shouldering the weapon with trained ease. Peering through the scope, I felt something strike me deep in the pit of my stomach, and I was forced to lower myself back down before I lost the loose hold on my sudden, instinctive need to _murder_.

Daryl saw the wide eyed, tight jawed look on my face and asked what was wrong.

I slowly turned to look at him, barely able to restrain the rage burning in the bright icy blue of my eyes.

“_It’s fucking Phil_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G'day guys!  
I want to apologise for the delay. The end of the financial year hit me real hard this time around as I have much more responsibilities at work than I usually do, which got me REAL BUSY, REAL QUICK. I had finally managed to sit down and edit this chapter, and I hope you have enjoyed it as thoroughly as the others. And I hope you're all well and doing amazing and all that good, sappy stuff. 
> 
> Thanks for tuning in again. As per usual, don't forget to leave a comment if you liked - or didn't, I'm an adult, I can take criticism - this chapter.
> 
> Thanks again for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	39. The Blood of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Governor has arrived at the prison, alongside a small army of his own, including a fully functional tank. How will they get out of this?

You know that phrase “speaking of the devil”?

I’m almost inclined to believe it was created _purely _for this exact moment. We’d been talking about him little more than a day ago. It was almost like Fate itself had looked at us, snorted a cackling laugh, and said, “Fuck you guys in particular.”

There was a rush of movement around me as those of us left scrambled to find their positions. It had been so long since any of us had run any kind of defensive drill that it likely hadn’t looked all that impressive, never mind the fact we were currently at half our usual numbers – if that.

Maggie ran past Daryl and I, handing over a rifle and old sniper, respectively, before taking a post by the fence with her own rifle that had been strapped to her back.

“Come on down!” Phil’s voice echoed from the base of the hill, cutting through my consciousness like a blade.

I felt myself stiffen, Daryl pressing in closer beside me.

Tensions began to rise in the air like a physical pressure.

“We need to talk!”

Rick steadily approached the courtyard fence, lips drawn down into a deeply troubled frown. I could tell he was on edge by the way he kept moving slightly side to side, keeping his bright eyes fixed on the man calling for him down below.

“It’s not up to me!” Rick eventually called back. “There’s a council now! They run this place.”

There was a beat of silence before I saw Rick take a slight step back in surprise.

“Is Hershel on the council?” Phil asked. “What about Michonne? She on the council, too?”

My shoulders clenched and forcibly unclenched. Slowly, I rose and peeked up over the edge of the pallet, peering through the scope of my rifle at the reality of what lay beyond our fences.

My heart froze in my chest when I saw the white hair. His expression was calm despite the situation, which was so on brand with Hershel’s wise-old-farmer persona, it would have brought a smile to my face had I not already been all but consumed by anger. Beside him, contrasting quite starkly against his calm demeanour, was Michonne. Her face was contorted into a twisted snarl of rage as she stared angrily down at the grass by the base of the perimeter fence she knelt before.

Her back was bare, absent the blade that usually adorned it.

The twisted cotton handle of her iconic sword was clutched loosely in Phil’s hand as he hovered above them both. He was a picture of arrogant serenity – the kind of confident calmness that came from being the one in a fight that had the fucking tank.

Yeah. You read that right.

A tank.

A fucking _tank_.

The man that had proclaimed himself “the Governor”, who had presided over an entire community with one face turned toward them, and another turned away, who had gunned down his own people in a moment of anger…

_That_ was the guy with the _tank_.

“Is my Syn on that council, too?” Phil called out. “I know she’s up there, Rick. And I know her well enough to bet she’s pointing a gun at me right about now. You’d best tell her to lower it.”

My finger began to twitch against the trigger. The anger I had kept locked away in that overflowing box of bullshit I kept buried in the back of my mind began to raise its ugly head. My body began to vibrate with the sheer force of it and I was about a second away from pulling that damn trigger and sending a 50. Calibre bullet straight into his fucking face.

“Synnove!” Rick hissed from where he stood by the courtyard’s gate. He’d turned his head to glance at me, turning away from the Governor and his beckoning calls to lift a steady hand in my direction. “Don’t shoot.”

I took my eye from the scope to give Rick an incredulous look, but he met my gaze with a steely look.

“You told me if I made the decision, that you’d follow me,” he stated, looking down at me with those intense blue eyes. “This is me making the decision. Don’t shoot until I give the signal.”

It took more will power than I am ever going to admit sliding my finger free of the trigger guard in that moment. But, I did, giving Rick an affirmative nod as I did so.

Of course, I kept the barrel of the sniper trained right between the Phil’s eyes as Rick pulled open the gate and began to make his way down the incline toward the Governor. His head shifted between the cross-hairs of my rifle and the imaginary target painted between Phil’s eyes as he descended the hill. When he came to a stop before the one-eyed man, I kept my eyes trained on the both of them, focusing my attention on Rick and his body language, waiting for the signal.

And waited. And waited.

My whole body was tense. Beside me, I could feel Daryl bouncing with anticipation. Maggie and Beth were both pressed against the fence, their rifles raised, barrels resting through the diamond-shaped gaps as they watched.

My chest rose and fell softly, giving the illusion of composure. The sheer mental force I put into keeping my breathing steady was almost enough to burn my throat.

For once, Daryl’s presence beside me only served to further my anger as the memory of holding his shaking body as he cried for his brother brunt against the back of my eyelids. One movement of a single finger, and I could find retribution for Daryl’s pain. Justice for Merle. A release of all that anger and guilt and _shame_ that festered inside me. One slight movement. That’s all it would take.

_But what if you miss?_

I blinked.

_I never miss._

But now the thought was there. I couldn’t shake free of it. Not with Rick standing so close to my line of sight. I had sighted our rifles in a few months ago, but they were notoriously unreliable. The scopes were old, meaning they often shifted slightly off kilter over time. My cross-hairs may be perfectly placed on Phil’s forehead, but that didn’t mean that was where the bullet would go.

_You can just eyeball it, moron. There have been shots twenty times harder than this that you’ve hit whilst partially concussed._

But what if I miss?

_Oh, shut up. You don’t miss._

I’d be betraying Rick. He made the call.

_Or you’d be saving him. And everyone else._

My internal debate distracted me momentarily as I watched Rick’s conversation with the Governor grow more and more tense.

Carl’s voice suddenly sounded from behind me. “We got to do something,” he said with urgency.

“Your dads got it,” Daryl responded, rising into a slight stand beside me. “They’re talkin’.”

“Talking to Phil is about as good as talking to a dick with an eye-patch that was gifted consciousness by a morally inept deity,” I muttered to myself, regretting it a moment later when I literally felt the weight of Daryl’s disapproving look on the side of my head.

Carl, however, snorted a curt, not-entirely-humorous laugh. “Exactly. We could just kill him right now.”

“From yards?” Daryl asked, sounding as if he were looking at the kid with a cocked brow.

“Synnove could hit a penny from a mile away,” Carl remarked in response.

I took one hand off my sniper to give him a thumbs up in way of thanks. It was nice to know he had such unabashed faith in me.

“She could _end this_,” he continued, with fever. “Right now.”

Daryl let out a huff of air. “Yeah, she could. Or she could just start somethin’ else.”

I took a deep breath through my nose. He had a point.

“Trust your dad, kid,” I added after a beat. Rick was one of the only reasons I hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. The other being that Daryl was right.

If we shot first, with Hershel, Michonne, and Rick standing where they were now… It likely wouldn’t end well. At all.

Though I knew he’d have better luck talking a donkey out of being an arse, I trusted there was something up Rick’s sleeve.

Although… It only took another tense five or so minutes to prove that I was, in fact, wrong in that assumption. Either that, or I had _grossly _misjudged how out of his fucking gourde Phil had truly become.

The blade caught the light of the sun as it swung down towards Hershel’s throat. Rick stepped forwards, almost blocking my line of sight completely, as if he thought he could somehow stop the sword’s trajectory from the other side of a wire fence.

My finger squeezed. The crack of the gun firing echoed through my skull for a few seconds before it was replaced by a high-pitched sound. For a moment, I thought I had damaged my ear drums, until I came to the heart wrenching realisation that the sound wasn’t coming from inside my head.

It was Maggie.

She was screaming.

I lowered the rifle, peering down over the hill at the horrible scene below.

The bullet had landed, but the mixture of my earlier uncertainty, Rick’s sudden movement, and the desperation to strike before Phil could land his blow on Hershel had rendered the shot askew.

A spray of blood dusted the air behind Phil as the bullet tore through the outside of his bicep. But it was too late. The blade had gained enough momentum that, even with the bullet wound, he had enough strength through gravity alone to finish his initial swing.

I felt my heart rise into my throat, beating thunderously and obscuring my ability to even breathe.

Michonne’s blade sliced through the side of Hershel’s neck, separating half of it from his torso in a large, bloodied wedge.

Beside me, Maggie’s scream cut off and she lifted her rifle, firing hap-hazardously into the group of enemies gathered outside the fence. The sounds of her gunfire drowned out her sister’s sobs and was rapidly joined by the resounding cracks of return fire.

I lowered myself down behind the crate again, staring at the corner of C-Block, my eyes wide and beginning to water. My breaths began to return to me, though I could still feel that sharp sensation in my throat as the scene from the field below replayed itself in my mind over and over.

Daryl crouched beside me, ducking beneath the crate. I could feel him shaking.

“I missed,” I whispered, more to myself than to Daryl but the wispy, shocked quality of my voice caught his attention. “I fucking _missed_.”

“Syn –“ His voice was hoarse, likely from the effort he was using to keep himself composed. I felt his hand reach out but flinched away before he could touch me.

“I don’t fucking miss,” I snapped, turning to look at him intensely. “I don’t – I spent my _whole life_ training not to miss. Ever. Fucking _ever_.”

The shock, the grief that had begun to rise within me, the guilt… it all festered and warped into rage almost instantaneously. Everything round to a halt around me – my breathing calmed, my racing heart slowed to a regular speed, and my face slackened into a blank expression.

Each and every one of my senses grew more refined, my instincts sharpening until I could practically feel the presence of all those around me.

I violently chambered another round and rose from cover. The second my eyes locked on a human figure beyond the fence line, I moved the scope a fraction to the right and took the shot, ducking back beneath as I chambered another round.

There was no more thought. No more hesitation. And no more fucking missing.

Beside me, Daryl began firing.

It wasn’t long before those fuckers utilised their fucking tank.

The shell exploded against the corner wall of C-Block, sending concrete and flames raining down around us in a shower of debris. Daryl and I ducked down in a tangle of limbs, as we both instinctively went to protect the other with our bodies – like a pair of morons.

Thankfully, only the smaller bits of debris hit, allowing us to regain our position within a few seconds of the initial blast.

The tank began to roll forwards, crushing the fence beneath its weight as it went. Rapid gunfire and periodic, thunderous explosions began to draw in every damn walker within a ten-mile radius. Daryl and I began to bark orders at our fighters, splitting up to cover more ground.

Mason was taking cover behind the wall of D-Block, poking out every now and then and hap-hazardously firing an assault rifle into the approaching enemy. I could see the wild, terrified look in his eyes and felt my heart squeeze slightly in sympathy. This was not a place for him, not right now. He didn’t belong in a war zone.

I waved my hand in his direction, screaming his name to get his attention. When he turned to look at me, his eyes widened further.

“The kids!” I yelled, gesturing toward the admin building. “Go get the kids! Get them on the bus!”

The moment the order had left my lips, his back straightened. A stoic sense of resolve seemed to overcome him as he tightened his jaw and gave me a steady nod before disappearing around the corner.

I felt a sense of pride well up but had to dismiss it quickly in order to mentally deal with the plethora of other problems I now needed to solve.

Rick was still down in the field, trapped in place behind the upturned old bus as bullets sparked against the metal. I had half a mind to get down there and give him a hand, but my priority right now was to our people as a whole – something I knew Rick would understand.

I was standing beneath one of the windows, yelling at Tyreese to collect some of the explosives we had stocked up in the armoury, when the tank fired another shell into the upper window right above my head.

With my instincts in overdrive, I had a fraction of a second to react before the shell even hit, which gave me a good head start in avoiding most of the heavier debris. The only problem with that was that I had to dodge backwards, further toward the mangled gate that lead to the now overflowing corridor between the inner and outer fence.

Walkers were pouring into the courtyard at an alarming rate, their numbers gaining so rapidly that it was becoming quite clear to me that I was in _actual_ danger.

I was good, but I wasn’t take-out-a-hundred-walkers-with-a-single-knife good. No one was take-out-a-hundred-walkers-with-a-single-knife good. Not yet, anyway.

The tank shell had shattered apart the metal grate that had been fixed to the outside of the window. Sharp shards of broken metal rained down around me, sending me dancing further and further away from the centre of the courtyard in order to avoid them.

A heavy section of broken bar shot down so fast, I didn’t have a chance to dodge. It sliced through the flesh of my outer bicep, catching my leather jacket’s sleeve (and a nice chunk of flesh) and jerking me down toward the ground with a violent tug.

The smell of my open wound, in addition to the big BOOM of the explosion above my head, seemed to coax the walkers toward me. I wasn’t the only one in the area – a few of the other prison occupants from D-Block were hiding behind a series of junk that we’d lined up against the fence as a means of privacy and protection months ago. The walkers overwhelmed the two of them almost instantly as I struggled to free myself from the steel bar.

It was in such an awkward position, I had to reach over my head to get a good enough grasp on the damn thing to actually pull it with a fraction of my otherworldly strength.

“Ow,” I hissed as I gave it a firm tug. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

The walkers were getting closer, but the pole was slipping free bit by bit at such a slow rate that I was beginning to grow quite _concerned _about my predicament.

That was, until a green tipped arrow pierced through the forehead of the female walker closest to me.

Daryl appeared a moment later, climbing over the rubble left behind by the tank’s shell and coming to stand by my side as he reloaded his crossbow. “You a’ight?”

“Perhaps you should ask the metal pole I currently have lodged in my arm,” I remarked, gritting my teeth as I gave it another forceful yank.

Daryl released another arrow into the skull of a not-so-rapidly approaching walker before hastily shouldering his crossbow and lowering himself down into a crouch beside me. “I can get it,” he said, his voice rising slightly in pitch, as if in fear. “Ya won’t like it.”

I looked up at him with a cocked brow. “I don’t particularly like it _in _my arm, either.”

Daryl snorted before leaning over to grip the pole. He took in a deep breath, cringed down at me in both apology and sympathy, and gave a strong, violent yank.

I bit down on my hiss as the steel slid up, through the edge of my upper arm. It was pulled free of the concrete it had embedded itself in during its initial fall, but half of the damn thing remained stuck in my upper arm.

As Daryl prepared for another attempt, I shifted my position slightly to pull one of my knives from the straps inside my boot. With a great deal of difficulty, I twisted it in my hand and tossed it, primarily using the flick of my wrist for strength. The blade sailed over Daryl’s shoulder, piercing the skull of the walker mere inches behind him, just as he pulled back once again.

The steel slid free. Finally.

Without even pausing, I rose from the ground and snatched the bloodied pole from Daryl’s loose grip, taking a step forward and throwing the pole like a spear at the pack of walkers gaining ground. It slammed into the first walker’s skull with ease, penetrating the whole way through and knocking it back with such force that the pointed end of the pole slid through a second walker’s face before they both fell to the ground.

It gave Daryl and I enough time to clear the pile of rubble behind us, though by the time we were halfway atop it, the tank had begun to crash through the courtyard gate.

A flood of Phil’s new friends came charging through, too.

The second they spotted us, they opened fire.

I pulled Daryl back down the incline of the pile of concrete, ducking beneath it to avoid the bullets as they fired hap-hazardously where we had been standing a few moments ago. Taking in a long, deep breath, I reached behind me and pulled the handgun from my back holster whilst Daryl reloaded his crossbow with a grunt.

Over the rumbling, shaking sound of the tank, and the crunching metal as it rolled over the wire fence, I heard one of the people stepping on the edge of the concrete pile. Without hesitation, I pushed myself up onto my knees and let off a shot directly between the eyes of the closest man. He didn’t even have a chance to register my appearance before he was falling back with a chunk of brain missing.

Once I’d returned back to our side, I looked sidelong at Daryl as he released another arrow into the skull of one of the hundred walkers currently ambling toward us.

We were stuck between teeth and bullets and neither option sounded particularly favourable to me.

I gently touched his arm, nodding across to the fence, speaking my plan without voicing a word. He gave me a troubled look, but nodded anyway, pulling his last arrow from the base of his crossbow and beginning to load it up.

I slid away from him, keeping as low as possible, until I was closer to the fence than I was the prison wall, where we had place a line of old prison lockers as defence. Rolling along the ground, I rose back up behind the locker, peaking slightly out to see one of the army-shirt-wearing blokes climbing over the pile towards Daryl.

Without hesitation, I fired another shot. It tore through his skull, knowing him sideways, adding to the pile of junk.

“It’s her!” I heard one of them yell. “That’s the bitch he warned us about.”

I slapped a hand over my chest with a silent gasp. “How thoughtful of him to mention me.”

Partially climbing the now-loose wire fence beside me until I was able to peak over the locker, I fired another shot over the top of it, catching them all by surprise. The bullet struck one of the women in the side of the head.

“Fuck!” a gruff voice called. “You gon’ come out or keep hidin’ like a little bitch?”

“Oh, you are gonna wish you hadn’t asked me that,” I responded, grinning a smug grin to myself.  
After giving Daryl another wordless nod, indicating that he get away from the walkers as soon as I distract the human assholes behind us, I pushed off from my foothold in the fence and launched upwards.

My body flipped over the locker, landing squarely between two of the women who had tilted their heads upward to watch my trajectory, unable to move their rifles in time to shoot before my feet hit the solid concrete between them. Without hesitation, I struck out with one hand, my palm crushing the woman on my right’s windpipe before I ducked down, swiping my leg out and taking out the legs of the woman on my left. A few stray bullets flew from barrel of her automatic rifle as she gripped the trigger in a panic, but thankfully, none of them hit anything worthwhile.

From my position, still partially crouched, I lifted a leg and kicked the woman gripping at her throat squarely in the base of her chest, sending her careening backwards, gasping for breath. Pulling a knife from my boot, I threw it as I rose to my full height, embedding the blade into the skull of a nearby army-looking-dude with a big gun.

An arrow sored over my shoulder, striking the woman behind me between the eyes as she attempted to rise.

Daryl leapt over the crest of the debris mound, using his surprise and momentum to strike the guy climbing the pile in the side of his head with a solid kick. I spun in place, drawing a knife from my hip, and landing it with my backhand in the guys skull as he fell.

My other hand, with barely any hesitation, pulled the twin blade from the other side of my hip and flung it forwards, into the face of the woman still grasping at her throat.

Neither Daryl nor I paused a moment to regain ourselves. I dashed forwards and collected my blades whilst he grabbed one of the fallen army dude’s rifles and began firing at the approaching group in the field below.

I focused instead on those who had managed to get into the courtyard under the cover of the tank.

Fun fact – the downside to having a tank is that they kind of suck in close combat. Now that he had driven _into _the prison, he was kind of at a loss for shit to blow up, unless he wanted to start taking out the buildings they hoped to live in after this.

_Poor thought process there, bro._

I ran forwards, toward the front of the tank, where a collection of five of Phil’s followers were standing, shooting at my people as they tried to flee toward the prison busses. Jumping up and gripping the tank’s barrel, I used it to gain height, releasing at the height of swing and catching one of the closest men with my legs around the back of his throat. With my momentum, I threw my torso downwards, locking my ankles by the base of his throat and sending him tumbling back. My legs released him once he was in an effective downward motion and I landed on my feet, taking off at sprint toward the others in the group. They were caught enough off guard that they hesitated to lift their rifles, enabling me enough time to slip inside their guard with little effort.

The first, a man, was the fastest to lift his rifle toward me. I slapped the barrel aside, sliding into his guard and striking upward with the palm of my hand into his larynx. He let out an almost comical gasp that was cut short as I ducked beneath his arm, reaching up to grab his chin with one hand as I stepped behind his back, pulling his jaw upwards as I slammed my other elbow into the side of his neck, snapping his spine with an almost uncomfortable ease.

I used my grip to twist his body, keeping it airborne long enough to kick it into his approaching friend’s path. The body spun and flopped to the concrete, catching the charging man in his shins and sending him sprawling forwards.

Whilst he was momentarily dealt with, I kicked behind me, having sensed the silent approach of one of the women, wielding a machete she had been about to burry in my back. The heel of my boot struck her in the nose, whipping her head back with enough force to disrupt her forward momentum. One foot still bracing me solidly on the ground, I used the one that had just connected with her face to land another two strikes – one in her chest, the other in her stomach. Effectively stunned, I took that moment to duck forwards, unsheathing a knife, twisting into my backhand, and shoving it upwards, into the base of her jaw in one fluid movement.

I pulled it out with a violent yank, using the same motion to fling the blade forward into the skull of the man I’d tripped moments earlier.

Another of the group attempted to swipe at me with their own knife, one quick swing of his arm that I slid beneath out of instinct alone. I took two light, almost dancer-like steps to the side, rising back to my full height as I reached out toward his extended arm. Slamming my forearm down atop his, whilst the other gripped his wrist, I was effectively able to bend his arm upward, twisting the knife in his grip towards him and shoving it into his wide eye. I let him go and his body fell backward.

Before his back even hit the ground, I was forced to duck, scrambling to the side as the last remaining of the group opened fire on me. I managed to duck behind the edge of the tank, sliding beneath it feet first, just enough to not be visible from the corner. A strong heat radiated from the engine, hot enough to probably burn a human, but it didn’t bother me. The moment her ankles came into view, I reached out with one hand and snatched it, yanking her off balance. As she fell, I pulled my gun from behind my back, knowing I had chambered a round earlier, and flipped off the safety.

As soon as her face came into view, I pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through her face.

I used her body to pull myself free of the tank and climbed back up onto my feet.

The brief moment of pause gave me enough time to spot Rick and Phil duking it out in the field below where I now stood. I lifted the gun. It would be an easy shot. I trusted the iron sight of a handgun more than the stock standard scope atop a rifle.

Someone came charging at me from the side, so sudden and fast that I barely had enough time to raise my rifle up to catch their stab. The body of the gun collided with their forearms, the point of the blade they had been thrusting downwards stopping barely an inch from my face. With my footing unbalanced by the suddenness of the attack, I was pushed back a few steps into the back of the tank by the man. The small of my back struck one of the sharp edges, sending a shooting pain down my arm and unsteadying my grip on the rifle. With a deep grunt, the man before me shoved his hands down again, and the blade of his long knife sliced painfully into the flesh of my cheek. My strength alone was the only thing keeping me from being skewered at this point. I couldn’t regain my footing, my back was being bent painfully over the back of the tank, and I head was turned as far away as possible.

This was not good.

And then, like a gun shot from the heavens, a bullet struck the guy in the side of the head, and he was send sprawling to the side like a ragdoll. I slunk down slightly against the tank, released from the pressure that had practically been keeping me upright, and turned to the side.

The shock of the sight that awaited me was almost enough to send me into cardiac arrest.

I saw one of the prison buses, now full to the brim with people, pulling away from the prison through the dislodged western fence. Two figures stood at the back of the bus. Mason, his pale arms propping the glass window open. And Claire, a rifle braced against her shoulder with a smoking barrel protruding from the gap Mason had made in the back window. They both met my gaze as the bus pulled away.

I gave them both a cocky salute. Mason grinned knowingly and Claire just rolled her eyes with a shake of her head. The sight made me give an almost sad chuckle, as I realised the likelihood of never seeing them again was rising more and more by the moment.

I didn’t get long to think on it, of course.

There was a pained grunt from behind me, somewhere to the left of the tank. It was a familiar sound, one that send a wave of urgency through me. I glanced down at the field, where Rick and Phil were still going at it and prayed that Rick retained enough of his crazy to handle Phil on his own before turning away from them.

Daryl was pressed against the brick wall, the body of a gun pushed up beneath his chin by a burly man in an army cap.

I took off at a sprint, literally throwing my body sideways into the man, using my entire weight to knock his ass to the side. He sprawled to the ground, pulling the rifle along with him until his grip was loosened as he struck the concrete, sending the rifle and one of the grenades clipped to his belt skidding across the concrete a few paces away. I pulled the bowie knife from Daryl’s belt, stepping forwards with the intent to end the man’s life, when a distinct, terrifying sound behind me made my spine straighten involuntarily.

I twisted in place, yelling for Daryl to run as I took off at a sprint toward the garden bed, diving behind the concrete edging just as the tank shot off another round. The shell struck the asphalt right were I had been standing, blowing chunks of rock and stone into the air.

My vision was blurred and spinning as I tried to pull myself back up into a kneel, ears ringing with the malicious ghost of the explosive sound. A hollowness spread through my body as the disorientation brought on by the damage to my inner ear made my limbs feel disconnected from my mind. I tried to reach out to the garden edging to steady myself, but the movement felt as if I were moving underwater. Slow, out of sync… When my palm did finally come to rest on the warm concrete of the edging, I wrapped my fingers around it tightly, using the connection to ground myself.

Downside of heightened senses… Big sound hurt bad.

Thankfully, my body began to heal whatever damage had been done quickly, and I was able to lift an arm to cover my mouth as the dust and debris rained of the explosion down around me. With a grunt of effort, I pushed myself back up onto my feet and scanned the area for Daryl. It didn’t take long for me to spot him, taking cover around the corner of the cell block. A sigh of relief escaped me when our eyes met, and he gave me a nod to indicate that he was okay.

I began to climb out of the garden, though I froze halfway through the movement as the hollow, metallic sound of a chambering round echoed through the courtyard. My gaze turned to the tank as the top half turned, shifting the barrel towards where I was now standing.

_Well. Fuck._

Without further hesitation, I hurriedly climbed the rest of the way over the garden edging and began to sprint toward the tank, moving diagonally toward it but away from the direction of the barrel. No doubt thrown off by the fact I was approaching the giant boom-machine and not running away from it, the shell that had been chambered was not fired. The top half of the tank tried to twist to follow me, but I was too fast. I leapt up onto the stationary track on the left side of the tank, using it as a foothold to climb up onto the metallic case of the rotating top section.

From the courtyard, I heard Daryl call my name.

The two of us were so in sync in that moment that I didn’t even need to look to see what he was yelling about. I simply kept moving, running along the long barrel of the tank before leaping upwards, reaching out to catch the live grenade Daryl had just thrown my way. In a fluid movement, whilst I descended from my initial leap, I slammed the live grenade into the circular hole at the end of the barrel.

When my feet hit the ground and I took off in a run, sprinting toward Daryl. He waited until I had reached him, his hand wrapping around my forearm as I gripped onto his with both of my own, not stopping in my run as I dragged him as far as I could get before the grenade went off.

The explosion of the grenade was strong enough to lift the top half of the tank off the ground. I felt the shock wave against my back, felt the shake of the ground as the body of the tank struck the asphalt. Daryl’s footing was unbalanced by the jolt. He slipped free of my grip, sprawling to the side where he was forced to curl in on himself to protect his body from the debris raining down around us.

I skidded to a stop, though my initial speed had left me a good few metres away from him. Something cold settled in my stomach as I watched him beginning to rise from the hard ground, moving with slow, aching muscles. Beyond him, through the smoke seeping through the smouldering cracks in the tank, a figure emerged. A man, tall and broad shouldered, striding forwards, waving a hand in which a gun was clutched in front of his face to clear the thick air surrounding him. He was wearing a tight army cap and baggy slacks, a pale army-green wife beater clinging to his muscular frame. I hadn’t seen him during this fight yet, which lead me to believe this was the man that had been operating the tank. The guy was nothing outwardly special. He was practically a walking military man cliche. But, for some reason, I remember his face oddly well.

He came storming out of the smoke, bright, wide eyes zeroing in on the closest moving thing he could effectively target. The gun in his hand swung outward, barrel pointing down at Daryl as he climbed back up onto his feet.

My body moved before I even gave it permission to. I kicked off from my place, a few feet behind where Daryl was standing, the sound of his name taring itself from my throat in a desperate sound of warning. His head lifted at the sound, eyes finding the hollow barrel of a gun pointed at him, body stiffening slightly at the realisation. I moved with inhuman speed, reaching out a hand, pleading with the Gods both above and below that I was fast enough.

The palm of my hand struck his shoulder at almost the exact moment the resounding crack of a gunshot echoed through the smouldering courtyard. I felt a blinding pain erupt through my skull, felt the sudden absence of Daryl’s warmth beneath my palm.

And then, there was nothing but darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. That was a complicated one.  
I really, really hope you enjoyed this one! I know it was a lot of action sequences and I hope it wasn't too much!
> 
> Again, I apologise for the delay. I've been quite ill and working for home which has been stressful for the most part. I'll predict the next instalment will likely be another fortnight away, too :(
> 
> I hope you're all staying safe and are well! I appreciate each and every one of you. So, so much! 
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment, if you feel like it! I live for them :)
> 
> Thanks for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,  
FaerieHuntress xx


	40. His Pain Made Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the prison leaves Daryl and Beth stranded alone and lost.

The smouldering remains of the place he had once called home chocked his lungs as he retreated. He could barely feel his legs as they carried him through the long grass. It was if he were running purely for the sake of doing so, with no destination, no true purpose behind him.

There was nothing behind him, really. Not anymore.

Beside him, a streak of blonde.

He felt his already thundering heart leap up into his throat as he turned his head to glimpse the form connected to the head of hair.

As soon as it had risen, his heart sunk once again, and he felt it like a blow as that confusing sense of motivation to keep going suddenly ceased to be. His legs gave out from beneath him and he allowed himself to fall onto his back, staring up into the blue sky above as he gasped and gaped, trying to catch his breath.

Beside him, Beth Greene collapsed into the grass, too. He could only just hear her exhausted breaths over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

It was a blur of memory.

His name. She had screamed his name.

The crack of a gunshot.

She fell in front of him.

His world had somehow simultaneously drained of colour and gone completely red.

The next thing he remembered was his knuckles cracked and bleeding, the ruined face of a man beneath him and the soft sound of a voice pleading for him to stop as small hands tried to drag him away.

“Please, Daryl. Daryl, you have to stop! Daryl! We have to go!”

He didn’t even remember stopping. All he knew was that he hadn’t wanted to.

Beth’s small hands had dragged him away from the stranger, pulled him toward the gap in the fence created by the tank’s last few shells.

They had passed by Her, where she lay on the hard ground, face turned away. A pool of crimson spread slowly through the divots in the asphalt, a halo of blood around her head.

Daryl felt a choked sob bubble in his throat and he lifted a bloodied and broken hand up, slapping it over his mouth. As he stared up at the clear sky above, he felt tears begin to slide free from the corners of his eyes.

“Come on,” a soft voice from beside him spoke. “We gotta keep moving.”

She was right. As much as he wished it, he couldn’t lay there forever. He had a responsibility to her now and that was what he should focus on.

Slowly, Daryl pushed himself up onto his feet, locking away any semblance of emotion that tried to pull him back down. Without a word, he reached down to help her up and began to run, further away from the broken ghost of the place he had once called home.

#

All throughout the night, walkers crowded the vehicle, their hungry hands clawing at the metal roof of the trunk. Thunder rumbled overhead, barely heard over the banging and high pitched clawing of the hungry dead folk outside their safe haven.

Not one moment was given to rest. Daryl’s eye remained staring down the site of his bow as Beth curled into the farthest corner she could, clutching her knife so tightly the pale skin of her knuckles appeared almost white as paper.

There was not a moment to think. He could only watch and wait with baited breath as the dead stalked past them all through the night. The man was almost thankful for the distraction. He knew where his mind would go if given the chance.

Come morning, the walkers teetered off to a reasonable level. Both Daryl and Beth climbed free of their overnight prison, taking deep breaths of the fresh morning air as they stretched their wary muscles.

The sun was breaking through the early fog, casting a dull light across the road. He could see the crossing outlines of tire tracks, leading up to the abandoned car like tattoos upon the asphalt.

Tattoos.

An image flashed across his mind. Black lines intertwining across smooth, dark skin. A chain winding around a thin wrist like a bracelet of ink.

Something inside his chest constricted painfully, a sensation like barbed wire around his heart being pulled taut.

The feeling was enough to knock him back a step and his hand brushed against the shattered taillight of the car, slicing a small wound into the back of his knuckle. A long breath escaped him as the physical pain cut through the thought that had been taking form inside his mind.

Beside him, the blonde gave him a curious look. He ignored it, using the sting of his sliced knuckle to push all other feelings down into the depths of his mind as he bent down to retrieve a hubcap. In his other hand, he shook free a garbage bag that had been buried within the trunk alongside them and began to fill it with a whole manner of debris from the car wreck.

They journeyed further still, into the depths of the forest where they could no longer see signs of civilisation in any direction. Not a word passed between them. The world around him was silent bar the crunch of leaves against the soles of his boots.

Each time his mind drifted; each time he swore, for a moment, he saw a flash of icy blue eyes between the trees, heard the distinct sound of a throaty chuckle, or smelt that vanilla and sandalwood smell of hers, he would press his thumb against that aching scab on his knuckle and the memory would vanish like a ghost in the night.

After hanging up their collected debris from the car wreak around them as a security blanket, the two set up camp for the night with a meal of cooked snake.

#

Days passed by in a shroud of almost complete silence.

The only words spoken were those of necessity, a mention of hunger, a warning of a nearby walker. Each night, they would surround themselves with debris from the hollowed-out car and hope the darkness would pass without incident.

Rare occasions past in which Beth would try to pull some kind of conversation from Daryl, yet each attempt fell on deaf ears. It didn’t take her long to realise that he was avoiding the truth. That he was living in an in between world. Neither accepting nor denying the reality of what they had been through, what they had lost. He simply kept moving.

Kept running.

One night, whilst Daryl lay sleeping at the base of a thick trunk, Beth allowed herself to feel the full force of what had hung over her for days. The loss of her father, her friends, her home. The fate of her sister being little more than a shadowed dream of hope. Her heart ached. Her mind ached.

Her body ached.

And yes, it hurt. But it was always going to hurt – whether she felt it now or later. So why prolong it? Why have it hanging over your head like the blade of a guillotine? If she were to carry on, she needed to remember what it was she had once fought for and know that it was possible to find it again. The world was not lost. She was not lost.

Not like Daryl had become.

“I want a drink,” Beth said. It had been the first words she’d spoken for days.

Daryl, without looking away from his feast of barbecued snake, tossed her the canteen they had been using. It skidded across the leafy ground and came to a stop in front of where she sat. She picked it up and tossed it aside in disinterest.

“I mean a real drink,” she clarified. “As in _alcohol_.”

Daryl didn’t so much as glance up in her direction.

“I’ve never had one. ‘Cause of my dad. But he’s not exactly ‘round anymore, so…” The words burnt slightly in her throat, and she could have sworn she saw Daryl’s shoulders flinch as he bit into that charred snake.

“I thought we could go find some,” she continued, biting her lower lip and trying her best to remain stoic despite the ache in her heart. When Daryl once again paid her no mind, she climbed up onto her feet in a huff. “Okay. Well. Enjoy your snake jerky. Jerk.”

Daryl’s gaze lifted from his meal to watch as she ducked beneath the ring of string that lined their camp. A bolt of anger shot through him. He’d have to chase her, now. Her father would never forgive him if he let her wander about the woods alone.

Well… He would have.

Anger was replaced by sorrow for a brief moment before Daryl shook his head clear of both and climbed to his feet.

He found her easily. Her footfalls were heavy against the underbrush for such a slight girl.

When he brought her back to the campsite, her anger was plainly written across her face. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care. It was not meant in a malicious manner, of course. Any emotion he seemed to feel would eventually pull itself toward the colossal abyss within him where all his sorrows lay, so he thought it best to avoid feeling altogether. Though the moment he peered through that mask of anger on her face to the true depths of pain that lay beneath, he understood that perhaps he had been too harsh.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she spat. “Do you feel anything? Yeah, you think everything is screwed. I guess that’s a feeling.” She snorted, shaking her head. “So you want to spend the rest of our lives staring into a fire and eating mud snakes? Screw that. We might as well _do _something!”

He had been quick to dismiss her offer of a mundane distraction from their current predicament. Too quick. He knew why the thought of hunting for a drink simply for the fun of it sent a wave of that deep, clawing ache through him.

It was something _She_ would have done. Something She would have convinced him to help her do. Not that it would have taken much convincing on her part. Daryl had found it near impossible to deny her anything since the first day he’d met her.

That sensation began to rise in the base of his throat again. He pressed his thumb hard against the torn flesh on the back of his hand, relishing in the physical pain as it overcame the shuddering ache inside his chest.

“Golfers like to booze it up, right?” he asked. The sound of his own gravelly voice almost startled him. His words ground against the walls of his throat, but the discomfort was made worth it moments later when he saw the hope light up in Beth’s blue eyes. “Come on.”

#

The distraction didn’t last long.

They made their way through the Country Club at the top of the hill in no time, only to find, at the end of their journey, that the bar had been looted practically dry. The only thing left was a half empty bottle of Peach Schnapps.

Beth began to search around for a glass, the tears slowly streaking down her cheeks catching the fading grey light filtering in through the half-closed blinds.

Daryl had busied himself with the dart board a few paces away from the bar, but the moment he caught the glint of those tears he felt something hard settle in the pit of his stomach. The sensation was accompanied by a voice, purring words into his mind with that irritatingly alluring accent.

“_You’d best get that girl a real damn drink, Little Dixon_.”

His entire body shook at the sound of her voice, even with the knowledge that it was coming from within him. A shaky breath escaped through his nose as he bit his lower lip so hard it began to bleed.

From behind the bar, Beth let out a muffled sob.

Daryl pulled himself free of the constricting hold his emotions held on his throat and walked toward her, snatching the schnapps out of her hand with a scoff. “Ain’t gonna have your first drink be no damned peach schnapps. Come on.”

It was a fair walk, but the whispered voice inside Daryl’s mind had reminded him of a place nearby. A place they had stumbled upon whilst out hunting a few months back. The memory struck him like a blow to the gut, but he breathed through the pain as he led Beth toward the rickety wooden shack by the river.

#

_“Oh, that is just gonna be full of demons, isn’t it?” _

_“Huh?” _

_Her icy blue eyes glinted in the mid-morning sun like shimmering crystal as they gave the run-down wooden cabin another once over. She shook her head, pursing her lips in that slightly bemused way she always did as she turned toward him, lifting a finger in mock warning._

_“Better not read anything out loud, just to be safe. And no opening creepy keepsake boxes, either.” _

_His brows furrowed deeper. “The hell you on about?” _

_Her bemused expression fell into a disappointed pout. “Evil Dead one and two _and _the remake? Hellraiser? The Possession? Cabin in the Woods? No? Nothing? My God. Watch a damn movie, hillbilly.” _

_Daryl felt his lips turn down in a slight frown as an odd sense of guilt rolled through him, as if he were somehow at fault for disappointing her. _

_The moment she caught the look on his face, her own brightened into a wide grin._

_As so often happened, Daryl felt his breath hitch at the sight. She was something else. Every time he looked at her, it was if he had to remind himself that she was real. Had she been anyone else, he would have been struck dumb by her beauty. But somehow… He always felt comfortable around her; as if he were able to be his true self without the lingering concern of being judged. _

_Of course, there were still moments where she caught him off guard. Like when the streaming light of the sun cutting through the trees caressed her skin and gave her a dim yet mesmerising golden glow. Or when she looked at him like she was now – with that wide, mischievous grin that intensified the curve of her angular cheekbones and lit those bright eyes like sunlight reflecting upon ice. And those moments when she broke into laughter and he swore to himself that not even the angels his mother used to pray to could make a sound so pure._

_Now was one of those moments as she tilted her head back and barked out a laugh and the sun broke through the trees and cast a bright golden light upon her cheeks. He felt his heart skip a beat as he watched her, eyes locked on her glistening lips as she stepped forwards and gave his shoulder a light pat. _

_“Ah, you’re adorable, Little Dixon,” she mused, stepping past him and making her way toward the cabin. “If there is more than one single taxidermied animal head on the wall inside this murder hut, I’m calling it a day.”_

_#_

“I was expecting a liquor store,” Beth remarked as they broke through the tree line and into the small clearing surrounding the cabin.

“This is better,” Daryl answered as he pulled open the rickety wooden door to the small shack behind the cabin and stepped inside. When he returned outside, he was carrying a small crate of glass jars full of clear liquid.

“What’s that?” Beth asked.

“Moonshine,” Daryl answered, almost proudly before nodding toward the murder hu – the shack. “Come on.”

#

Beth made herself comfortable inside whilst Daryl stood by the window, keeping half an eye on their surroundings. He could hear the moment she took her first step by the guttural cough that followed.

“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Daryl snorted.

She took another sip. “Second rounds better.”

“_Keep an eye on her, idiot_,” the voice whispered again in the back of his mind. Without really thinking, he turned around and took a seat on the dusty sofa beside where she was sitting, cross-legged on the floor. He could practically feel the leering eyes of the stag mounted on the wall to the left of him. Well, if the thing _had _eyes, that is.

#

_“Hey, hey. Ask me who I think is blinder than Merle after two shots of fireball.” _

_Daryl shook his head, snorting as he let go of the TV’s antenna he’d been fiddling with. “Who’s blinder than Merle after two shots of fireball?” _

_She jerked her thumb toward the mounted buck’s head on the wall above her as she struggled to suppress a smile. “No-eye-deer.” _

_A giggle began to bubble from her throat. _

_Daryl did his best to bite down on his own laugh as he shook his head in disbelief. “I hate you.” _

_“No, you don’t,” she responded between giggles. “You wouldn’t know what to do without me, Little Dixon.”_

_#_

It had been months since they had first stumbled across this place and it made Daryl feel like curling in on himself to admit that, as flippant of a remark as it had been… She’d been right.

Something sharp stuck in his throat.

Despite the aloofness he’d been displaying, Beth seemed to somehow notice his slight shift in demeanour. She grabbed one of the glass jars and handed it up to him. “Let’s play a game.”

Daryl took it cautiously, giving her a questioning look.

“So, first I say something I’ve never done and if you’ve done it, you drink. If you haven’t, I drink. Then we switch.” Beth met his gaze only to be met with a blank look. “You really don’t know this game?”

Daryl shrugged one shoulder, feeling a little self-conscious for reasons that were beyond him. “Never needed a game to get lit before.” He gave her a once over. “How do you?”

Beth matched his shrug with one of her own. “My friends played. I watched.” She let out a long breath before lifting the jar of moonshine closer to her lips. “Okay, let’s start. I’ve… never shot a crossbow.” A somewhat awkward pause. “Now you drink.”

He took a swig. “Ain’t much of a game.”

“That was just a warmup,” Beth remarked in response, sounding almost defensive.

_She’s just trying to bond with you, jackass. Give it a chance._

The voice again. And it had a point. He was being a jackass and he knew it. But it was either that or opening the door behind which he had stuffed all his emotions, so full it was overflowing with the sound of Her voice. He wasn’t ready to face the full force of it all. Not yet.

“Now you go,” Beth said after a moment, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t grasping a jar of moonshine like it was a lifeline.

“I don’t know,” Daryl stated honestly. What was there for him to say?

“Just say the first thing that pops into your head.”

_Jesus, give her something, Georgia-boy._

“I’ve never been outta Georgia.”

Beth blinked in surprise. “Really?” She pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay, good one.” Her face contorted as she took a long swig from the jar, clearing her throat before continuing. “I’ve never… been drunk and done something I regretted.” 

A snort inside his head. “_Does it count if it’s something you regret _not _doing?_” He could practically see her smirking at him. “_Like leaning in that little bit further when it was just you and me?_”

He tipped his head back and drank much more than what would be considered “a sip”.

Beth nodded. “Your turn.”

A beat passed. It was almost as if he expected that voice to make another remark, but that last long swig of moonshine seemed to have silenced it for now. Daryl wasn’t entirely sure if that was truly what he wanted. It hurt to hear it; hurt to know it would only ever be a sound bound to the confines of his mind. Yet he was not ready to never hear it again. He feared he never would be.

Perhaps he should stop drinking and allow it to return?

“I’ve… never been on vacation,” he breathed after a long silence.

Beth cocked her head to the side, her blonde hair falling across her pale forehead. “What about camping?”

Daryl shook his head; feeling is irritation beginning to rise. “No, that was just something I had to learn.”

“Your dad teach you?”

He nodded in response, not wishing to encourage her to question further. The topic of his father was a sensitive one. One he had only ever spoken to about with two people in his life. His brother and… Her. And even then, he’d spoken barely more than a sentence here or there about it. He hadn’t needed to speak any more on it. She’d understood. She had always understood.

Beth pursed her lips, lifting her jar to her lips. “Okay. I’ve… never been to jail.” A brief pause. “I mean, as a prisoner.”

Daryl felt his heart sink into his stomach. Every muscle in his body seemed to freeze in that moment as he looked down at the frail blonde girl sitting cross-legged on the floor before him. “That what you think of me?”

Beth seemed to freeze, also, her eyes widening ever-so-slightly. Blue eyes.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes.

They were all wrong. The wrong shade. Too dark a blonde. Too deep a blue. His heart began to thunder in his ears.

“I didn’t mean anything serious,” Beth tried to explain. “I just thought, you know… like the drunk tank. Even my dad got locked up for that back in the day.”

His jaw clenched. That faded voice in his head tried to speak calming words, but they only served to fuel the fire that was his belief that She should be here instead. That She would never have thought such things of him.

“Drink up,” he ground out, gesturing toward the jar in Beth’s hand.

She took a slow sip, almost nervously. When she finished, she lifted her hand. “Wait! A prison guard. Were you a prison guard before?”

He could tell she was scrambling, trying to think of a way to repair the sudden rift she’d accidently created between them.

He didn’t care. “_No_.”

_Stop being such an ass_. _It isn’t her fault that I’m not there, Little Dixon. Don’t take it out on her._

That _damn _voice.

Daryl stood from the ruined sofa and began to walk over to the wall at the back of the room, tilting his head back and gulping down the remains of his drink as he did so.

“It’s your turn,” Beth called out to his retreating form.

“I’m gonna take a piss.” He tossed the jar rather violently to the side.

It crashed against the wall with a sound that Beth could swear echoed through the whole forest.

“You have to be quiet,” Beth hissed.

“Can’t hear you!” Daryl yelled back, fuelled both by his own pain and the alcohol he’d just basically shot into his bloodstream. “I’m taking a piss!”

Beth’s brows furrowed as panic began to rise up inside her chest. “Daryl, don’t talk so loud.”

“What, you my chaperone now?” he snorted, zipping up his pants before turning back around. “Oh, wait. It’s my turn, right? I’ve never… eaten frozen yogurt. Never had a _pet pony_. Never got nothin’ from Santa Claus.” He threw his hands up, taking a somewhat aggressive step toward her. “Never relied on anyone for protection before. Ain’t ever relied on anyone for anything except for –“

Beth’s expression had begun to grow somewhat nervous but the moment that “except” had left his mouth, it was as if an unspoken understanding dawned on her. She softened, lifting up her hands in a calming gesture. “Daryl –“

Daryl waved her away. “Never sung out in front of a big group out in public like everything was fun. Like everything was a _big game_. I sure as hell never cut my wrists lookin’ for attention.”

_DARYL_.

He buried the voice. Kicked it down deep, focusing instead on the new sound filtering in through the wide gaps in the woodwork of the cabin. A walker, growling loudly from the edge of the trees.

“Sounds like our friend out there is trying to call all of his buddies.” He turned towards the door but paused, turning back to look at Beth as she pleaded for him to be quiet.

“Hey, you never shot a crossbow before?” he asked, reaching out to grab his retired weapon, leaning up against the wall by the door whilst encasing her small forearm in the grip of his other hand. “I’m gonna teach you right now. Come on. It’s gonna be fun.”

#

Despite her protests, Daryl dragged her none-too-gently outside to face the walker in the yard. He knew he was being an asshole. Knew that this was something Merle would do, not him. But he couldn’t help himself. All that pain he could feel scratching at the surface twisted and rotted into something even he didn’t recognise.

He began to push the walker around, getting dangerously close to those gnashing teeth as if he didn’t even care to be cautious. Daryl kept going, ignoring Beth’s pleas for him to quit it – to just kill the damn thing and be done with it.

He even ignored that damn voice.

Until Beth finally snapped, stalking forwards and ramming the point of a blade through the walker’s skull.

“The hell you do that for? I was having fun!”

“No, you were being a jackass!” Beth hissed in response. “If anyone found my dad –“

“Don’t,” he warned, lifting his free hand. “That ain’t remotely the same.”

Beth put her hand on her hip. “Killing them ain’t supposed to be fun.”

Daryl threw his crossbow to the ground and opened his arms in a wide, helpless gesture. “The hell do you want from me, girl? Huh?”

Beth stepped toward him, lifting her chin as she met his gaze. “I want you to stop acting like you don’t give a crap about anything!”

His upper lip twitched as he held back a snarl.

“Like –“ She chocked up but swallowed back the lump in her throat, continuing on with a strength in her voice he hadn’t expected. “Like nothing we went through matters. Like none of the people we lost mean anything to you! It’s bullshit.” She met his gaze almost challengingly as she spoke her next words carefully. “I know at least one of them did.”

His body went cold instantly and Beth could sense the sudden rigidness to his form as if she had run head first into a wall.

“_Don’t_.” Daryl’s voice was hard and rough as he hissed the word.

The force of it made Beth nervous but she swallowed back against her fear and tilted her head higher. “I get it,” she continued. “You don’t want me here – you wanted her. I’m just another dead girl to you. That’s all you see when you look at me. I’m not like Michonne or Carol or Maggie. And I sure as hell ain’t like Synnove.”

The sound of her name made his entire body flinch as if she had dealt him a physical blow. His eyes squeezed shut as he tried to shove back the torrent of emotion that was toiling at the edge of his mind.

Still, Beth continued forward. “I’ve survived and you don’t get it because I’m not like them. But I made it and she didn’t and you hate me for it.”

Daryl’s body began to shake. “Stop it.”

“No!” She took another step toward him. “Stop pretending like it don’t hurt! Like you didn’t love her and losing her ain’t killin’ you!”

He jumped back, away from her, away from her words. There was too much inside him. It felt as if he were about to explode. “The hell would you know?” he yelled, trying to divert the storm inside him back into the anger it had festered into earlier. “You lost two boyfriends and didn’t even shed a damn tear! Your whole family’s gone and all you can do is go lookin’ for hooch like some dumb college bitch!”

Beth’s expression soured. “Screw you! You don’t get it.”

It was Daryl’s turn to step toward her now. He jabbed a finger in her direction. “No, you don’t get it! Everyone we know is dead!”

“You can’t know that!” Beth yelled back.

“I know _she is_!” His voice broke on the last syllable of his screamed words and he felt that roiling thunderstorm within him begin to break free, burning his throat and stinging his eyes. Beth stepped toward him again but he waved his arm violently between them to keep her at bay. “That’s all that damn matters.”

“Daryl –“ Again, she tried to move toward him, to reach out with a comforting hand, but he stumbled backwards, desperately scrambling to get away.

“_No_!” He shook his head, lifting a hand to grab onto the tufts of hair on either side of his temple. “Rick, Michonne… Maggie – you ain’t ever gonna see her again. And I – I ain’t… She – She’s go- She’s _gone_.”

“Daryl, stop. Please.” Tears slid slowly down her cheeks as she him with a pained grimace.

She was crying not for herself, but for him. For his pain. The pain he was trying and failing to bury back down into the depths of his mind.

He pushed and he pushed but it would not sink back down. His legs gave out from beneath him and he crumbled to his knees with a choked sound, hands still pulling at the hair on either side of his head. “She’s gone… She’s gone…”

It didn’t make sense. He didn’t understand. How could she be gone, just like that? Synnove le Jacques had been larger than life itself. How could she have been felled by something as simple and small as a bullet? Shot by some nameless man that meant nothing to this world?

It wasn’t right. _It wasn’t right_.

It wasn’t _fair_.

That had been a bullet meant for him and he goddamn knew it. Why did she –

Daryl took in a gasping breath, his whole body shaking uncontrollably as the chocked sound of a sob finally tore itself free.

Beth, who had been watching him from a few paces away, utterly shaken by the suddenness of his turn, began to move forward. Slowly, cautiously, she sunk down to her own knees beside him and began to slide her arms around his shoulders. His form was shaking so violently it rattled her bones, but she didn’t care. She held him tight as his body was wracked with sobs, unable to hold back her own.

“She loved you, you know,” Beth whispered. “I know she did.”

He shuddered violently. Though he doubted the validity of the words, the thought alone gave him more solace than he’d ever admit.

“You might not believe it, but I saw the way she looked at you.” Beth chuckled but the sound was interrupted by a sniffle.

Daryl bit back another sob. She was right – he didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. Women like Synnove – beautiful and confident and funny and smart – they didn’t go for guys like him. But the words seemed to soothe something inside him. That sense of uncertainty that had been plaguing him since even before she’d been taken from him.

The two of them knelt in the dirt together for what felt like hours whilst they both allowed themselves to truly _feel_ for the first time since they’d left the smouldering ruins of the prison. As soon as she was sure he had stopped shaking, she slowly peeled herself from his back. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder as she looked down at him.

He was slumped forwards, staring mindlessly down at the ground. His eyes were dry but there were streaks through the dirt on his cheeks where tears had carved their path.

“Hey,” she softly whispered.

The slightly louder intake of breath was the only indication he gave that he’d heard her.

“Come on,” Beth continued, giving his back a slight rub. “I think I know what Syn would do right now if she were here.”

He flinched again at the sound of her name but turned to look at Beth curiously.

She grinned down at him with a mischievous glint in her eye he almost recognised. 

Without a word, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a zippo lighter. “You game?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I am so, so sorry it has taken SO GODDAMN LONG to get this chapter out. My work got so ungodly busy that I barely had time to scratch my own ass.   
Thankfully, I have finally finished this chapter and I'm so excited for you guys to read it! This one had been in my mind for a long ass time, before I'd even begun writing the series itself! I hope you like it as much/are as emotionally crushed by it as I do/am! 
> 
> Once again, leave a comment if you're feeling generous! I will get to them in real time as quick as I can :D
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,   
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress xx


	41. A Broken Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun bears down upon the smouldering remains of the prison yard. Upon the concrete lay a body, drenched in blood. In the golden light of day, it moves.

The world faded back in slowly at first, a blur of colour and sound; and blistering, burning pain. My head felt as if it were on fire. It was the only thing I knew for sure. Every other thought spun in the vast emptiness around me, caressing my consciousness, but remaining out of reach. When things began to return, it was piece by piece. The soft breeze. The stench of smoke and death. The sensation of hard ground beneath my back. The sound of guttural voices and shuffling feet.

Shuffling feet?

The stench of death?

There was something off about that… _Brain hurt_. _No think_, _please._

Something touched my foot.

My body seemed to jerk into motion before I could even really make the conscious thought to move. I rolled to the side, flopping unceremoniously onto my stomach with the grace of an elephant seal. My face pressed down against the concrete, nose bending painfully to the side. Everything felt sluggish. My brain, my body, my senses. I knew I needed to move but willing myself to do so only sent a flare of white-hot pain through my head.

Shaking free of it as best I could, I groggily pushed myself up onto my elbows.

Something grabbed my ankle again.

I slid my legs up, pulling them beneath my torso and using much more strength that I would like to admit lifting myself onto my hands and knees.

The thing behind me made a uniquely gross gurgling sound.

I awkwardly crawled a few paces forward to get away from it, only for a pair of scuffed, booted feet to take up my field of view. When I turned my head to the side to see the familiar-yet-now-rotting and horribly beaten face of the army guy that had shot me, only now walker-fied, I let out a pitiful, hoarse curse and rolled to the side as it tried to lower itself down to take a bite out of me.

I pulled myself along the asphalt until I was facing where I kind of remembered the gate was supposed to be and I began to crawl. It took me an embarrassingly long time to clear the courtyard. Only when the top of my head pressed against the wire fence did I realise my aim had been kind of off.

Everything was so… weirdly disorientated. I could have sworn I was crawling the right way, but the world seemed tilted, uneven. The ground rolled and shifted like waves on the ocean.

Using the wire fence, I shakily pulled myself up onto my unsteady feet and took a long moment to attempt to take in my surroundings. To give myself credit, I hadn’t been too far off. The fence gave way to an opening a few feet away from where I now clung to the wire.

I began to unsteadily shuffle toward it, though the moment I let go of the fence, I lost my balance and stumbled to the side. The edge of my hip hit something solid, steading me for long enough to reach out with both hands and grasp for something to hold onto. My palms pressed against something hard and cold. I turned my head slowly to look at what I was leaning against, a slow, drunk smile spreading across my face.

“Why hello, Mr Tank. Awfully handsy for a war machine that hasn’t brought me dinner yet, aren’t you?”

Something warm dribbled down the side of my head, curling behind my ear and down my neck in an oddly gentle caress. The sensation made me shiver and I lifted one hand up to press against the area, my face scrunching up in confusion when I saw the wet blood coating my fingers.

“Did you hurt me, Mr Tank?” I asked, noting for the first time how slurred my voice was. In fact, I was pretty sure I wasn’t even speaking actual _words _because what I thought was me saying “Mr Tank” actually sounded a lot more like “_Maburlb_”.

My fingers followed the trail of dribbling blood from my neck up to the side of my head. A hiss escaped me as a sudden sharp pain spiked through my brain.

“_Owie_.”

I probed the spot again. It was a hole. There was a hole in the side of my head.

Leaning against the side of the tank, I lifted my other hand to feel the opposite side of my skull.

Yep. There was a hole there, too.

An in and an out.

Huh.

Someone touched my shoulder. I turned my head to look at them, greeted only by the open maw of a rotting corpse as it lunged toward my face.

I slapped it with a bloodied, unsteady hand. It was an awkward slap, but it was hard, and it sent the unsteady walker tumbling to the asphalt. I hovered over it and waved a finger in its direction. “You didn’t _ask_.”

“_Persken a’yora bei_,” came a hissed voice from behind me.

I turned around, the movement throwing me a little off balance for a second before my eyes focused on the scaly creature perched atop the tank’s thread. A grin spread across my face.

“G_lasithinn_!” I yelled in glee. Though, in reality, it sounded more like “_gash-n-slash_”.

“_Aprokah, tur dyhilde, sidhe_?”

“Why are _you _here?” I hissed back in a slur. And then I blinked. “Wait. I understood that. You said “why are you still here, sidhe” right?”

The creature tilted its head to the side. “_Tah_.”

That meant yes. I giggled a horribly high-pitched, girly giggle.

The creature’s head tilted to the other side as it regarded me worriedly with those big, dark eyes. “_Fahg_, _sidhe_. _An me’fahg_.” It was telling me to leave. _Leave now_.

Why would I leave? I had a friend now.

But... where were all my other friends? I had more. They were here. Where have they gone?

Where was He? That Very Important friend?

I felt myself frown as I turned in place, peering through the large hole in what had once been the gate to the courtyard at the walker-infested field beyond. My sounds had begun to attract some of the undead toward me. I hadn’t even noticed until now.

“_Pera fahg mon chosaint, sidhe. Cher mon ocras_.”

_I will protect you, sidhe. Because I am hungry. _

Well, what better a reason?

“_Cher ma’aryn fae dore_.” _And because we fae must stick together_.

Despite the fact my brain was in no-way-shape-or-form converting any of the stimuli around me into relevant information, I decided to begin walking down the dirt path that cut through the field. Why this way? Habit, maybe. Because I was a faerie and it was a pathway and we always stuck to the paths? Who knew?

I stumbled down the incline, barely even worrying myself with the walkers that turned their attention to me. The ones the g_lasithinn _didn’t manage to get to, I half-heartedly shoved away when they drifted too close.

I was almost near the bottom of the hill when I first smelt it. The blood. It was familiar yet foreign all at once. A mixture of two known things that were tangled together into an unknown thing.

My head turned toward the smell and, of course, because my head had turned, my whole body did, too. Ruled by little more than instinct and a barely-there thought process, I investigated the strange-but-not smell by leaning down and taking in a few deep sniffs.

The moment I recognised one of the familiar scents, the one latched to the unmoving form, partially hidden in the grass, I felt myself recoiling. “Ew. Phil.”

My face twisted into a grimace.

And then smoothed out into a dopey grin when the second scent registered. “Yay. Ricky.”

That smell continued on, past the fence line. I was pretty sure that was the good one, so I elected to follow it.

It was the only thing I knew for an eternity.

Or, at least, what felt like one. My brain healed more and more the longer I walked. At some point I registered the second scent, attached to the first, recognising it as Carl. My legs began to carry me faster, my strides growing steadier as my sense of balance slowly returned.

I kept moving. Through the night, I walked, following that distinct metallic pang in the air. A few walkers mingled about as the forest thinned out into a small cul de sac. They were spread far enough apart that they were honestly of no bother to me. I shuffled around them with little issue, following that smell, stumbling along until I reached a set of wooden steps.

My chest was warm as I looked at that white door. I didn’t understand why, not until I climbed up those stupid steps on all fours like a drunkard, scrambled back up onto my feet, and approached it with a wary breath.

With an embarrassing amount of effort, I lifted my fist and knocked a rather unrhythmic “shave-and-a-haircut” against the white wood of the idyllic houses’ front door.

There was a long stretch of silence that followed my knock. And then the faded sound of shuffling, a low chuckle, and the distinct sound of something being dragged across floorboards.

And then the click of the door.

I had never been happier to see a man in my entire goddamn life.

“Syn?” Rick breathed, his beaten and bruised face stretching into a wide, hopeful smile. Those crystalline blue eyes of his lit up my narrowed little world.

I let out a sound that was partway between a chuckle and a sob as I stumbled forwards, throwing my arms over his shoulders. He wrapped his around my waist, pulling me so tightly against him that it drew a pained wince from the both of us, but neither let go. If anything, our grip on one another tightened.

I buried my face into the crook of his neck and breathed in, fighting against the urge to burst out into tears.

Then, a sound from the hallway behind him. It was a young voice, speaking my name as if it were a question. I stepped away from Rick, slowly peeling my arms from his shoulders as I peered around him at the young boy standing by his back.

His blue eyes, so much like his fathers, were clouded by tears, widening in shock as his whispered question was answered.

“Syn!” he yelled, charging forwards, practically knocking his father aside, and wrapping his arms around my waist. The tears I was only barely holding back broke free, sliding down my cheek as I lowered myself down to pull Carl closer.

I may have squeezed the kid a little too tightly, but it did not seem to bother him. He let out a sob, burying his face into my shoulder, his thin body beginning to shake.

“I – I thought you were –“

“Shh. I know, kid,” I hushed him softly, loosening one hand to gently rub his back. “I know.”

Rick came to stand on my other side, wrapping one arm around my shoulder and pulling the both of us to him. The three of us remained standing there, embraced together until the sun dipped beneath the horizon.

#

Rick and I basically had to bribe Carl into going to bed that night.

He hadn’t wanted to leave either of our sides, but both Rick and I agreed that kid needed a solid night’s worth of sleep, and we had things to talk about that wouldn’t exactly instil a sense of calm.

Both Rick and I were exhausted, but I managed to clean myself up a little, securing a haphazardly made bandage to my head, before returning to the living room and getting a nice flame going in the fireplace, completely un-magically-aided. Which, let me tell you, was not easy when your fire poker is made of iron and you can’t touch it.

Rick made a loud groaning sound as he sunk down into the sofa, sounding as if he ached down to his bones. I slowly rose from my crouch before the fireplace and stepped a few paces backwards, collapsing down beside him. The two of us sat there in silence for a long few moments, simply breathing in one another’s company. Shadows danced across the room, cast by the flickering flames before us, and filling the near silent air with the soft sounds of a crackling fire.

An hour passed. A nice, relaxing hour.

Rick, who I had honestly assumed had fallen asleep a couple minutes ago, turned his body partially on its side to face me, resting his head against the back of the sofa. The firelight cast half his face in shadow, yet the flickering of the flames glinted mesmerizingly in those crystalline eyes of his.

“Did you see where any of the others went?” he asked me, voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

My heart missed a beat, but I held back against the sudden urge to cry and shook my head in response. “I know the bus made it out but I don’t know who was on it other than Mason and Claire.”

He nodded once, pursing his lips as he clenched his jaw, dropping his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

I frowned, twisting my own body to face him, almost mimicking his position. “For what?”

“Everything.” Rick took in a long breath through his nose, winced, and then blew it out with a sigh. There was still a light rattle to his chest.

It made me cringe in concern.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I told him sternly, keeping my voice low. “What happened wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine.”

His frown deepened. “Then why do I feel so guilty?”

“Because you’re a good man,” I whispered in response. “Even when you weren’t their leader, you still felt responsible for everyone.”

“I should have let you shoot him.” His eyes seemed almost red in the firelight, haunted.

I reached out to brush my fingertips across the back of his hand that lay atop the sofa cushion between us. “No. You made the right call.”

His hand slowly turned, drawing mine into his palm and gently entwining our fingers, dropping his gaze to peer at our joined hands with a tight frown. “Doesn’t feel like I did.”

“If I had shot him right then, all hell would’ve broken loose.”

“It did, anyway.”

“True,” I admitted with a slight nod. “But if you hadn’t gone down there to talk to him, we wouldn’t have had time to prepare. People _were_ saved because of the call you made, Rick.”

“People were killed because of the call I made.”

Rick’s eyes lifted back to meet mine.

God, he looked exhausted, as if he had been carrying the weight of the entire world on those shoulders of his for _years_.

“Hershel. He’d be alive.”

Something sharp stuck in my throat for a moment, but I forced myself past it. “You don’t know that,” I breathed. “One of his people could have killed him in retaliation. He was too close to it all.” My voice sounded almost clinical as I spoke. “What happened, happened, Rick. There’s nothing we can do to change it now and getting caught on the what-ifs just tightens the noose.”

Rick’s thumb had begun drawing soft lines up and down the outside of my forefinger. The sensation was enough to give me goose bumps. “We gotta find ‘em.”

I didn’t respond. My gaze dropped down to our entwined hands, heart rising into my throat.

Was there even anyone left to find? I didn’t know. Back in the courtyard, when I had been surrounded by walkers, any one of their faces could have been someone dear to me and my ruined brain wouldn’t have even recognised them. The thought made my heart ache as my mind formed the image of the one face I refused to believe I would ever forget.

Silence settled between Rick and I, broken only by the soft crackling of the fireplace and the distant sound of gurgling walkers. We had moved slightly closer together at some point during our conversation, now sitting no more than a few inches apart. The proximity warmed me more than the fire.

“Did you… Did you see him?” Rick asked, suddenly breaking the comfortable silence. We both looked up from our joined hands at the same time, meeting each other’s gaze evenly.

“Phil?” I asked, furrowing my brows. “He’s dead, Rick.”

“No,” Rick breathed with a gentle shake of his head. “Not the Governor.”

He looked evenly at me for a long moment, eyes holding the weight of a thousand sorrows. The realisation dawned on my like a physical blow to the chest. My eyes squeezed closed as I shook my own head, making a move to take my hand from his.

“No. I lost him.”

Rick’s hand tightened before I could pull away. I couldn’t meet his gaze, knowing that the grief roiling inside me would be mirrored in his eyes. My composure wouldn’t survive seeing it.

Gently, Rick lifted out hands and began to pull my arm toward him. He straightened in his seat slightly, extending his other arm our along the back of the sofa, welcoming me to his chest.

I slid across slowly, leaning into his warm body and taking in a large breath. His arm curled around me, pulling me hard against him for a brief moment before relaxing.

The palm of his hand lay flat against the bare skin of my shoulder, his forefinger beginning to trace the lines of my tattoos.

I pulled my hand from his in order to wrap my own arm around his solid torso.

“We will find them. We will.” Rick turned his head, resting his cheek atop my hair as his other hand came to rest atop my knee.

“Who you trying to convince, there, Sheriff?” I asked.

My tone may have been light, but the reality was that I couldn’t help but doubt it. Our whole In-Case-of-Emergency plans had barely been in place, seeing as the Council could not seem to decide where the evacuation point should be. I’d suggested Woodbury, as it was still walled in and relatively safe, and we’d eventually agreed upon it – but it hadn’t exactly been public knowledge. There was nowhere else I could deduce they would fall back to. Not right now, anyway. Not with my damn brain still acting like it was little more than mush inside my skull.

“You,” Rick answered before letting gout a humourless, breathy chuckle. “Me? I don’t know.”

“There is one good thing that came out of all this, you know?” I stated, pulling back from him only slightly enough to turn my head and meet his gaze.

He saw my small smile and returned it with a confused one of his own. “What?”

“I blew up a fucking tank,” I answered with a wiggle of my brows. “Not many people can say that, now, can they?”

That made him laugh.

A _real_ laugh, not a curt, near emotionless one.

The sound made my chest grow warm and I felt my own giggle bubbling.

For a beautiful moment, the two of us laughed softly between ourselves, until the sound began to fade as we realised how close we had become. His eyes met mine, loosening at the corners as he stared down at me across the minimal distance between us. I felt something coil in the pit of my stomach at that look. At the soft, gentle gaze he gave me.

We remained, as if the both of us were frozen in indecision.

And then Rick’s eyes dropped for the slightest of moments, gaze drawn down to the curve of my mouth as I ran my tongue slightly along the inside of my lower lip. That was all it took to spur him into making the decision.

The first movement was slight. Almost hesitant. He turned his head to the side and slowly leant forwards. The space between us lessened. My breath hitched slightly as I glanced down at his lips. I lifted my chin.

And, gingerly, he closed the space between us.

His lips were soft, gentle at first, as if still unsure. He pressed them against mine for a brief moment before pulling back, barely enough to break contact as he let out a shaky breath. Then, with a renewed sense of confidence, he pressed them harder against mine. The hand on my shoulder slid up to the side of my neck, cupping the back of my head as he parted his mouth, sliding his tongue out and along my lower lip. I returned his fever with a near desperate one of my own, hand gripping and tugging at the fabric of his shirt.

His palm slid slowly up the outside of my leg before he grasped my thigh and began to lift it, pulling me partially over his lap. Our tongues brushed as I climbed atop him and I tasted the distant tang of copper, still lingering from the cut on his lip.

Rick’s fingers tangled in my hair, his hand on my thigh lifting to grip my hip painfully tight. I slid my own hands up, over his chest and hard shoulders, along the curve at the back of his neck and into his thick, curling locks. Our bodies moved together as we tasted one another.

His grip on my hip pushed and pulled, encouraging me to grind against him, and I thoughtlessly obeyed.

The sensation was almost addictive. It had been a long time since I’d been in such a situation and the sheer want of relief had clouded my judgement.

It wasn’t until I felt Rick’s hand slide up, underneath the front of my shirt that I realised… This didn’t… feel right.

I don’t know if it was the sudden realisation that we were both definitely not in the right mindset to be doing this or if it was the fact I’d just heard Carl moving upstairs that knocked the sense back into me.

Either way, I leapt off Rick’s lap as if I’d been electrocuted.

He let out a grunt of surprise as I pushed myself backwards, onto my feet in front of the sofa with a hand going up to clap over my mouth.

“Syn?”

Rick’s voice was hoarse and confused as he looked up at me, his brows pulled heavily down as if in guilt, like he thought he’d done something. I looked back at him, letting my hand fall as I shook my head. A breathless laugh escaped me.

“We shouldn’t do this,” I said, as plainly and gently as I could muster.

He blinked once in confusion.

I gestured between us with both hands. “You. Me. We shouldn’t.”

Rick slowly straightened from his slouched position, reaching over to grab one of the pillows from the corner of the sofa and resting it atop the solid bulge in his jeans. “Why?”

A small breath escaped me in a sigh. “Would you have kissed me a week ago?”

He cocked a brow, a motion so slight it seemed almost unintentional. “You’re a very good-looking woman, Syn. What makes you think I wouldn’t have?”

“But would you have?” I asked, taking a slight step forward. It wasn’t an aggressive question. “I know we flirted every now and then, but it never really felt… serious.”

Rick didn’t answer for a minute. He lifted a hand to rub the scruff on his jaw, eyes glancing around the room, looking anywhere but at me as he contemplated his response. With a soft sigh, he shook his head. “You’re right. We don ‘t –“

“– Have that kind of relationship,” I finished, and Rick solemnly nodded. “It’s fine, Rick. You’re not hurting my feelings here.”

Rick blew out another breath and threw the pillow softly back to the corner of the sofa as he rose to his feet. “It wasn’t that I never thought about it.”

“I know. I have that affect.” I flashed him a shit-eating grin.

It lightened the mood enough to earn a slight smile. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”

“And, for the record, you’re not exactly hard on the eyes, there, either, Sheriff,” I admitted with a soft smirk. “I mean, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that it would’ve been hot as shit. If it wasn’t… you know… me and you.”

Rick snorted a chuckle. “I’ll take it.”

A sense of relief rolled over me and I slowly made my way back to the sofa, sitting back in my original place, on my own damn cushion. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t wanted it, per se. Burying myself in sex to avoid painful thoughts wasn’t exactly something I was a stranger to. But I couldn’t do that to Rick. Not when I knew it was purely mindless on my behalf.

A somewhat awkward silence followed. Rick was chewing on his split bottom lip as if he were deep in thought. After a few moments, he took in a deep breath and turned partially to look at me again.

“Can we agree not to tell Daryl about this?” he asked, almost cautiously.

I turned toward him, swallowing back against the lump that had suddenly risen in my throat. His tone had almost implied that it was an assured thing, as if he knew that we would find him again.

I tried to hold onto the same optimism, but it slipped through my grasp like smoke.

“A conversation for another day,” I sighed, turning around on the sofa cushion and sliding closer to him to I could rest my head on his lap. My eyes flittered closed.

“Mmm,” he hummed, letting his hand rest over the curve of my hip as he leant back into the sofa. “Another day.”

#

I awoke before the sun had broken free of the horizon.

Rick remained fast asleep, partially lying on his side, arm still carelessly hung over my waist. I’d moved at some point, my head now resting on the edge of the sofa instead of his lap. Slowly, I slipped free of his embrace and made my way to the laundry to change and clean up a little before heading to the kitchen.

Carl joined me a few minutes later, pulling out a box of stale cereal he’d apparently found a day or two prior for us to feast upon. He told me all about what he’d gotten up to whilst Rick had been practically dead on the couch, about his adventures in the neighbouring houses and the consequences of eating an entire tub of pudding in a single sitting. That had made me chuckle.

He then admitted that he’d missed a few houses, having headed back after finding the pudding tub. I suggested we do a quick run through before we left, giving Rick a well deserved sleep in.

So, I wrote a letter with a pencil and old notebook, leaving it on the floor beside the sofa before Carl and I headed out.

There was one house that he’d purposefully avoided. The one that had given him the, and I quote, “heebie-jeebies”.

Honestly, what thirteen/fourteen-year-old kid uses the phrase “heebie-jeebies” unironically?

We were walking up the cracked concrete path that lead to the front porch when I felt it myself. I’d been midsentence, making a light joke about how the kid had spent way too much time with Michonne to be coming out with shit like “heebie-jeebies”, when my mouth snapped closed practically of its own accord.

A chill clawed down my spine the moment my foot pressed against the creaky wooden step of the porch, a hideous feeling of unwelcomeness rolling out from the picturesque little white door like a wave of thunder.

“You know what, kid? Maybe we should trust your gut.” I began to back away.

Carl stayed standing where he was, staring up at the house with a pouted frown. His big blue eyes turned back to me and I could see the fear lying within them, despite how hard he tried to act tough.

“Nah, come on! We can do it!”

He was trying to be brave and I admired that, but I knew well enough when not to test that “feeling-watched” sensation. This house was not empty and whatever lived inside did not want visitors.

Ghosts were not exactly what I would call a great “concern” of mine. Honestly, they were barely… anything at all. They were practically harmless, able to really only give you a good jump or two. Forming a solid mass was not a common practise as it took way too much energy for them and, honestly, most don’t really give enough of a shit to bother. Some, of course, get bored and delight in terrorizing the living, but once you acknowledge that they can’t physically harm you, it gets quite old, quite quickly. Ghosts are only souls anchored by unfinished business or a sense of moral ineptitude – meaning, if you don’t feel like you should go to the Good Place but aren’t quite assholey enough to go to the Bad Place… you usually just get… stuck here. Some are bitter about it whilst others honestly prefer it.

Especially once they discover there’s a whole world out there for supernatural little fuckers like them. Being a ghost isn’t so terrible.

Some fae can see ghosts as easily as they can see a solid object right in front of them. Others, like me, aren’t that capable but still have a keener eye than a human. Most ghosts can’t corporealize but one day a year – I’ll give you one guess what day _that_ is – but there are some that have mastered the ability easier than others. Those, I can see. The stronger ones.

Another thing I can see? _Poltergeists_.

Now, unlike ghosts, poltergeists are assholes, completely unabashed in their dickery. They’re aggressive, manipulative, and strong. Usually, they come about because of some horrifying death or because a ghost has stuck around to stew in their anger for much too long. Also, unlike ghosts, they can (and most certainly will if given the opportunity) do physical harm.

And, honestly? They’re just scary motherfuckers and I _do not_ like them.

I wasn’t entirely sure which option was awaiting us within the walls of that unwelcoming house, but I was not in the mood to find out.

Besides, that was the last thing this kid needed right now. Seeing a poltergeist would scar his poor ass for life.

“Kid,” I sighed as I reached out to stop him, gently gripping his upper arm. “Sometimes, when you feel a place isn’t right… it isn’t.”

He scrunched his face into a confused frown, glancing back from me to the house. I could tell he sensed it – which usually didn’t bode well. A human able to pick up on it usually meant a stronger presence.

Well, strong enough to be more of a bother than I was ready to deal with that morning. My heart hurt and my sense of balance was still a little off kilter, so I was not in the mood to deal with running for my life from the terrifying warped image of a man peering in –_ oh, God. I can see it. He’s looking through the front window at us. _

In the lower right corner of the murky window, I could see its gnarled features, scowling a near cartoony scowl that distorted its entire face as it watched us with bright white eyes.

“Nope.”

I didn’t give Carl another opportunity to argue. Pulling him along, I retreated back to the safety of the street, walking down to the edge of the neighbouring property before I even let go of his arm.

“The hell was that about?” the kid asked, though he sounded breathless and more than just a little unnerved.

I hope he hadn’t seen the face, too.

“What’s the first rule of the jungle, kid?” I responded, glancing down at him and being sure to wipe my expression free of any underlying fear that remained. The question was part of an old joke we’d had between us – something I’d jokingly grilled him on after giving an overdramatic (but shortened) retelling of the movie “Predator” to bribe him into going to goddamn bed.

“Trust your instincts,” he answered with a shake of his head, face smoothing out into an almost-smile.

“What’s the second rule of the jungle?”

“Don’t let it bite you.”

“And the third?”

“If it bleeds, you can kill it.”

I slapped him gently on the back and gave him a wide grin. “Good work, kiddo.”

He gave a soft laugh and the sound warmed the chill that house had left within me.

We walked down the street for a while longer, deciding the last on the block was the only house worth the raid. The two of us paused at the top of the front steps as if waiting for another overwhelming sense of unwelcomeness, but when we felt nothing but still air, we gave each other a confident nod and pushed inside.

Disturbed motes of dust floated into the air with each step we took, glinting in the thin strip of sunlight that cascaded in through the partially opened living room blind like the glow of pixies in the deep, dark forests of old.

I paused in the entryway as the echoing sound of the creaking door bounced from the walls.

Nothing. No shuffling footsteps or gargled breathing. The house was empty.

I blew out a sigh of relief.

“We’re good, kid.”

Carl gave me a nod.

The fact that no one questioned how I just knew these things nowadays really did astound me. Even the kid – the curious, non-stop-question-asking kid – didn’t think to query it anymore. It had begun to feel as if everyone had just… gotten used to it? Or decided that they didn’t want to know. Perhaps they’d even found their own way to explain it, which happened more than you’d think. Humans had a way of explaining things away that they don’t want to think about.

Funnily enough, kind of like the existence of ghosts.

“Hey! I had one of these.”

I turned to see what Carl was talking about, finding him standing by the edge of the dusty television set clutching an old PSP. A snort escaped me.

“So did I,” I remarked, stepping over to him. The screen was coated in an almost inch thick layer of dust and there was an unpleasant, sticky substance glinting on the directional pad, but it still looked to be in relatively good nick.

“Did you ever play God of War?” Carl asked, his eyes lighting up in a way I was afraid I’d never see again.

I grinned. “Not Ghost of Sparta but I played the others.”

Carl smiled as he looked down at the abandoned toy. “Mum didn’t want me to play it because she said it was too violent.”

That made me snort. “She was right.”

“Yeah, I know. But I borrowed it from my friend, Matt, and played anyway.” Carl looked up at me with a sly little smirk, as if he were proud of disobeying his mother’s wishes. Honestly, it made me chuckle. Because it was something I probably would have done, too. “She never even knew.”

“I think her perspective would be different nowadays, kiddo,” I remarked, reaching out to take the PSP from him.

He let out a long, drawn out sigh that sounded like an expression of emotion he was far too young to be feeling. A kind of life exhaustion, as if the mere burden of living made the air itself feel like a pressing weight upon his shoulders. The thought made me sad so, as he turned away from me to begin heading toward the staircase, I did something I probably shouldn’t have.

I allowed a tiny sliver of magic gently slip free from my fingertips. It was nothing much, really. A little burst of lightning concentrated into the circuitry leading to the battery within the small, handheld toy.

It gave a loud popping noise as it sputtered to life, a little “shocked” by its suddenly full battery.

Carl whirled on the spot.

“Would you look at that? It’s still kicking.” I grinned at him before turning the handheld console off and making a show of slipping it into my backpack. “Keep that for later, huh?”

Carl’s smile lit up the dusty, desolate room like the sun upon a forest clearing.

I held onto my grimace until he’d disappeared up to the second floor. It had been nothing much, that was true. But it had been enough. I sunk down onto the edge of the TV unit, resting my forearms against my partially bent knees as my head gave a painful throb, matched by the unsteady beat of my heart. The Mark on my shoulder sliced into flesh. A trickle of blood left a line of crimson down my skin as it disappeared within my shirt.

My body shook once as I forced myself to overcome the sudden exhaustion and throbbing pain and I rose back to my feet, clenching my teeth and wiping away the blood without another thought.

“Syn! Come up here, you gotta see this!”

A deep, controlled breath. I plastered on a smile. “On my way, kiddo!”

#

Carl and I made it back well before noon.

I think he could tell I wasn’t… “feeling well”. When we returned, Rick was sitting in the kitchen eating some stale cereal Carl and I had made a meal of earlier. The moment his gaze landed on me, his entire demeanour changed. His back straightened, eyes softening as his brows pulled down into a concerned frown.

“You okay?” he asked.

God. I didn’t look that bad, did I?

I shrugged my shoulders non-committedly. “Could use a nap, if I’m being honest.”

Rick nodded once and I could almost see him choosing not to mention how we’d slept last night. “There’s a bed upstairs. I’ll keep an eye.”

I debated for a moment. Really, it’d be best for us to leave now. Sticking around in one place for too long was usually asking for trouble and I doubted our friends would find us here now if they hadn’t already. They were likely moving on and moving further from where we were now.

On the other hand, though… I wouldn’t be of much help out there in my current state. Everything felt as if it were slightly… tilted, only I could see that it wasn’t. My body moved slightly out of time with the sensation of movement and small circles of static seemed to cling annoyingly in the corners of my vision.

My ass felt _weird_.

How long would I really last out there like this? How long would they?

With a deep breath, I gave Rick a thankful nod and began to make my way toward the upstairs bedroom. Carl followed along behind me, helping me up the stairs like a little gentleman.

When I reached the bedroom, I stopped in the doorway and turned back toward Carl, slipping the backpack free from my shoulders. “Why don’t you look after this for me?” I asked with a wink.

He grinned. “Sure thing. I’ll take extra good care of it.”

I watched him retreat to the room he’d claimed as his the night before with a slight more spring in his step than earlier before I turned around to face the bed. My uneven steps carried me to the edge, and I fell face first down onto the soft mattress. I breathed a sudden burst of dust in through my nose and sneezed, turning my head to the side to avoid another face-full of it.

My eyes began to drift closed, the sudden picture of a man standing before a grand fire, angel wings sprouting form over his shoulders and spread wide, silhouetted by the flames burnt into the back of my lids like an afterimage.

The sight filled me with an odd sense of calm and I clung to it tightly as I drifted off into oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day once again! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, it was nice to kind of dig a little deeper into Syn's relationship with Rick and Carl. Hope you all enjoy it, too!! <3


	42. Veins of Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Syn tries to rest, their house is set upon by a group of Ne'er-do-wells (assholes).

I was awoken a handful of hours later by Rick’s panicked, “_Syn_.”

My eyes fluttered open slowly, as if weighed down by a thousand lifetimes worth of exhaustion, to find him hovering over me. His hand came up as soon as he saw I was awake, a finger pressed against his lip to signal silence. Sweat clung to the light strands of hair that hung over his forehead.

It took me a few moments to gather my thoughts, my mind still a few steps further behind than usual, but the moment I heard the footsteps, realisation sent a bolt of electricity down my spine.

“Where’s Carl?” I whispered, brows furrowing as I lifted myself partially off the mattress, high enough to peer out the door, as if I expected to see him standing there.

“Safe,” Rick answered. “I got him out, but I couldn’t leave you.”

The sound of voices came up from the lower floor, as if only just now breaking through my thick skull. I still couldn’t quite make out the words. One voice seemed much more aggressive than the others, with another sounding as if it were pleading.

“No!” the second voice filtered into my brain. “No, no, no! Please, don’t!”

Rick’s eyes widened at the sound of blows. He reached out, grabbing my arm and practically hauling my ass off the bed like a misbehaving child refusing to get up for school. “We gotta move,” he whispered.

“You plan on finishing the job?” a new, deeper voice asked. The sound was accompanied by booted footfalls upon the staircase.

Rick and I shared a panicked glance.

“Yeah,” another voice responded, the aggressive one from earlier.

“I’m getting an earache and I know he’s just gonna let his ass squeal.” The footsteps grew louder as the speaker ascended the staircase.

“After what he did, the man deserves to bleed.”

Well. That… does not bode well. These were not the kind of people we’d want to meet face-to-face. Especially right now. My hand automatically reached down to touch the hilt of my knife, still safely sheathed by my hip.

Despite the fact my mind was no operating at full strength, I was quick enough to devise something one could call a plan. We couldn’t leave the room – not without being seen or heard. The bathroom was too far away for Rick to reach it without his footsteps becoming noticeable for our rapidly approaching guest on the staircase.

Best and quickest plan of action right now was the bed.

You’d be surprised how often that one actually works.

“Bed,” I hissed, pushing Rick gently towards it.

He thankfully didn’t hesitate.

The two of us hit the floor, sliding underneath the thin gap between the bedframe and floorboards. I had to lie with the left half of my body practically atop his back just to ensure there were no possibility of protruding limbs. We were so close, I could feel his body shaking, almost hear the sound of his sweat dripping down on the wooden floor beneath us.

Those booted feet reached the top of the staircase, stepping into our view through the open doorway.

I was able to keep my breathing slow and calm, placing the palm of my hand gently against the small of Rick’s back to try and encourage him to do the same. His panicked breaths were horrifying loud in my ear and, though I knew my senses were heightened by both species and my own internal panic, the passing thought that they were loud enough to draw the steadily approaching man’s attentions sent a cold chill down my spine.

He, too, seemed to come to the same realising a few seconds later, lifting his left hand up to cover his mouth in an attempt to stifle the sound.

The booted feet crossed the threshold, a black rifle barrel hanging casually down by their leg as they walked across the floorboards, opening the cupboards and kicking aside scattered articles of clothing.

He was surveying the room, which... wasn't great.

I could feel Rick’s tension as if it were my own, but forced myself to move with the silent fluidity I had mastered over the years as I reached down with my free and to withdraw my knife. The man took a step against the creaking floorboards and I used that moment to pull the blade free with a small _shink_.

I brought my hand back up to where it had been earlier, using my elbow to keep my torso bent high enough to keep an eye on the room, knife in prime stabbing position. The blade was thankfully still coated in a rather gross amount of dried blood, rendering its usual shine dull and making its refraction of light unlikely to alert the newcomer.

The man strode around the room for a few more minutes, inspecting the nooks and cranny’s until he was apparently satisfied. With a sigh, he walked over to the bed and collapsed down atop it. The underside of the mattress pressed down against my shoulder, pushing me harder against Rick and flatting him against the wooden floor.

We both fought back the urge to wince. And to curse.

It was an overall not-great situation to be in.

I at least had some (unfortunate) experience with something similar, so I was able to keep myself relatively calm on the outside, but Rick’s body partially beneath mine refused to stop shaking. It wasn’t for lack of trying, I knew that. But the exhaustion of the past few days, his injuries, the heat of the day... Everything was working against him.

Thankfully, whatever dickhead was lying above us was practically oblivious to the exorcist-style bed shaking he was surely feeling.

Okay. An over exaggeration. 

The mere fact I was braced between Rick and the mattress lessened the sensation some, and the guy above us was apparently one of those assholes that can fall asleep within minutes of lying down, so he was out like a light almost instantly.

Still. Neither Rick nor I dared move from our place. We both knew it would be too risky. Rick wouldn’t be able to move quietly or deftly enough not to wake the snoring man above us. Waiting it out seemed to be the best option for now. And it seemed to work for what felt like hours, though I knew was only likely one – if that.

Another set of booted feet began to ascend the staircase outside the bedroom door. A scrawny set of legs, covered in ratty jeans that tucked away into an old pair of army boots, walked up to the doorframe. There was a light knock, followed by a rather aggressive, “Yo!”

The man above us snorted as he awoke, obviously startled.

“Comfy?” the newcomer asked, though it was laced with sarcasm and sounded as if he were really asking something else.

“You wakin’ me up to see if I’m comfortable?” was the agitated response.

Rick’s shoulders tensed beneath me. I understood his sudden unease. The way these men spoke didn’t sit well with me, either. It was like witnessing two male lions having a discussion over a gazelle they both wanted to pounce on.

“I want to lie down,” the newcomer stated, his tone sounding almost expectant.

“Two other bedrooms up here to choose,” the man above us retorted.

“Them’s kids’ beds,” the one in the doorway argued. “I want this one.”

My lips pursed. Now he was just being a brat.

“It’s claimed.”

The man in the doorway stepped forward, booted feet creaking against the wooden floorboards. I couldn’t see his face, but I had the odd inclination that he was leering down at the man lying on the bed above us. “I didn’t hear it.”

“You’re gonna have to lay claim somewhere else,” the bed-man tried, though even I could sense the unsteadiness of his voice beneath the words.

With little warning, the newcomer tore the other man from the bed and threw him against the wall. It was impressive, considering how thin his legs appeared to be. I’d imagine he wasn’t that strong of a man. The surprise and audacity of the move might have given him an advantage.

A blow was landed, sending a resounding crack through the room as the bed-man stumbled back into the wall, bouncing off and attempting to tackle the newcomer. The two men scuffled for a moment before one of them managed to get the other on the ground.

I was pretty sure the one lying on the floorboards, struggling to push the smaller man off, was the guy that had been on the bed earlier. He was desperately waving his hands, trying to keep the other guy’s grip from his throat, but failing miserably.

Rick and I were so tense, we had practically turned to stone, willing the man mere feet from our faces to not turn his head to the right. It was a futile hope, of course. Mere moments after hitting the ground, the bed-dweller twisted his head in an attempt to keep his attacker’s hands from his throat, and his gazed landed solidly on Rick and I.

I think the shock of our presence was what cost him his life in the end.

His grip on the other man’s wrists that had been keeping those hands from wrapping entirely around his throat loosened ever-so-slightly, giving the man above chance enough to press harder against his throat. Fingers curled around his neck, thumbs pressing against his airways in a manner that was much too familiar to the way I’d been taught for comfort.

“Len!” the man choked out. He was using the last remnants of his breath to beg the man above him to let him go. “Len, stop! Stop!”

His eyes were still fixed on us, wide and terrified, but his hands still attempted to pull at the constricting grip on his throat.

The man above him chuckled. “Hell no.”

Rick and I remained perfectly still beneath the bed, watching as the light faded from the man’s panicked eyes until they drifted shut. His hands fell to his sides, striking the wooden floor with an sound of finality.

In reality, the likelihood that he’d been choked into unconsciousness was far more likely than the alternative. That was what I imagined Rick was thinking. He was a cop, after all. He’d have to know it would take far longer to choke a man to death than what we had just witnessed.

What Rick didn’t know, of course, was that there had been a sound mere moments before that light began to fade. A crack, resounding from the base of the man’s neck. I doubt even the asshole above him noticed it.

Breaking a man’s neck was an almost terrifyingly easy thing to do, even on accident.

Fragile human bones, those vertebrae.

The man still breathing let out a huff of air as he rose to his feet, spitting onto the floorboards by his “friend’s” dead body. “My bed now, jackoff.”

Had I been an ounce less capable of holding my damn tongue, I would have snorted something unfriendly under my breath. Imagine killing a man over a _bed_. A fucking _bed_. A bed they could have easily shared, really. It was a queen, after all.

But I knew men like this and their aversion to anything that could remotely remove them from the higher tiers of masculinity.

He’d rather kill a man, apparently.

Over. A _bed_.

The underside of the mattress pressed against my shoulder as the man crawled onto it, grunting whilst he turned from one side to another, trying to get comfortable. I don’t know why it was so shocking to me. There had been worse stories I’d heard during my years as an assassin. Humans killed each other over some stupid ass shit all the time. But hearing about it and witnessing it in all its brutal glory was… something else.

I mean… _dude_. Just… _dude_.

These men had a kind of familiarity between them that insinuated they had travelled together for long enough to have formed some kind of bond. Comradery, at the _very_ least. But even with that, Mr Len-d Me A Brain seemed barely phased by the fact he’d just murdered a guy that’d been part of his group. He didn’t even seemed bother by the thought of another of the men stumbling upon it, either.

It didn’t paint a very flattering picture of the relationships between these guys. As a group, they may be comrades, but as individuals they were little more than desperate killers clinging to one another for survival.

Len-d Me A Brain fell asleep almost disrespectfully quick. Rick twisted his neck, looking away from the unnaturally still body lying on the floor before us and attempting to share a glace with me over his shoulder. I met his questioning look and shook my head as slightly as possible.

No. We couldn’t move yet.

The first sign of movement from the dead guy, I’d deal with it swiftly, and I was pretty confident I could do so without disturbing the murderer sleeping above us. He was close enough to stab without having to barely move. But until we had to, movement needed to remain at a minimum. We had no idea what would happen in the next few minutes. It was best to stay calm and wait and see.

Time passed slowly, made even more so the rhythmic sound of a bouncing ball that echoed down the halls like an ever present heartbeat. Thankfully, sure enough, about half an hour later, a voice called up from the staircase for Len and “Tony” to get their asses down there.

“Yo! You hear me?” the voice called again.

Quickly following it came the sound of another voice, deep and gravelly, that yelled out, “Claimed!” with an odd amount of excitement.

“Shut the hell up!” Len-d Me A Brain exclaimed, having finally had enough of the sudden cacophony of noise from downstairs. “I’m trying to sleep!”

That first voice answered him, and his words sent a cold chill down my spine. “There’s a woman shacking up here.”

How the fuck did they know I was here? Rick went stiff.

Above us, Len-d Me a Brain shifted, his legs swinging down into view beside me. “Say what?”

“Come down!”

Len stood, snorting a laugh. “She hot?”

“Don’t grab your pecker just yet,” the first voice responded evenly. The sentence made me grimace. “She ain’t here.”

“The hell you hollering about?” Len asked as he passed the threshold of the room.

“Found her shirt,” was the echoing response.

I almost smacked myself. Of course. The shirt I’d washed this morning. I’d left it drying in the laundry. It would have been the only article of clothing in that room that was damp.

“Must’ve just washed it,” the man continued, solidifying my suspicions.

Len reached the top of the staircase. Rick jerked, as if intending to move, but my hand on the small of his back pressed down hard to stop him.

_Not yet_.

“Smells good!” another man remarked, and I raised a doubtful eyebrow.

That thing had been covered in more walker guts, blood, and sweat than physically possible to wash off. It would have smelt _horrid_.

Thankfully, yesterday, my brain had been made of mush and Rick’s nose had been busted in so neither of us could have smelt it, but I still knew it was _rancid_. The white, yellow, and red floral button up I’d put on in its place had smelt of moth balls and dust, with a faint odour of decay, but it was a welcomed improvement.

“Oh, you found a shirt,” Len was remarking as he took to the stairs. “She could be miles away by now.”

Another man’s voice. That made at least five of them. “Why go to the trouble of washing the shirt if she’s just gonna ditch it? She’ll be back.”

“Well, then,” Len remarked, his voice well and truly at the bottom of the staircase now. “I call first when she gets back.”

Oh. Gross.

“Okay, now is good,” I whispered to Rick with a fevered nod and deep grimace.

He was only too happy to oblige. We both began to slide free of the bedframe on either side, taking care to be as silent as possible. Rick took longer than I, not being as practised at the art of silent movement as I was, but eventually rose to his feet by the side of the bed, eyeing me as if in question of what to do next.

I jerked my head toward the door and we both quietly stepped toward it, out into the hallway. The bedroom windows were set into the wall behind the bedside tables, which would create far too much noise to either crawl over or move. I knew the ensuite window was thin; I’d be able to squeeze through it on an empty stomach, if I were lucky, but with those broad shoulders, Rick wouldn’t have a chance in hell. Even with the small chance that their parents may have locked the windows as a parental precautionary measure, the kids’ rooms were the best bet.

“Who knows who else she got with her,” another voice stated from down below. It was slow and contemplative, purposeful. “The blood on that shirt tells me she’s a fighter. We have to be ready for anything. Len, take the side room.” 

That man, the one with the deep southern drawl and cowboy gruffness to his voice… He was the leader. I could tell by the slight lilt of authority to his tone, the way his confidence oozed over his words.

A man that could command group of murderers was the most dangerous kind of all.

_Smart_.

Rick and I had barely taken a full step out into the corridor when the sound of footsteps approached the staircase again.

“Hold on,” said Len’s voice. “Let me get a gun.”

The gun. Tony’s gun, that he’d left resting against the wall in the bedroom. The one we were partially in the threshold of.

My mind raced a million miles a minute.

Going back into the room would be too risky. We wouldn’t get under the bed in time.

Rick hesitated, jerking slightly back as if he intended to try, but I grabbed his arm and yanked him forwards, fully into the hall. A few paces down, there was a stand-alone bathroom. Its door was shut, meaning shutting it behind ourselves after entering would give us more cover and wouldn’t be suspicious, as to them, the scenery wouldn’t have changed.

I pulled him toward it, feet silent against the floorboards, the hand still holding my blade reaching out to push down on the door handle. It creaked open and I whipped Rick in first, sliding in behind him just as the top of Len’s balding head appeared at the crest of the staircase.

Deftly, I silently shut the door behind us.

Rick took in a sharp gasp of breath.

As did someone else.

I reacted out of instinct more than anything. The man that had been sitting on the closed toilet, seemingly reading something of great interest, made a move to rise, his legs and back tensing. He didn’t even make it an inch off his seat before I had reached across and buried my blade into his throat, severing his vocal cords and rendering his open mouth scream utterly silent.

Blood bubbled in his throat, spilling over onto the front of his shirt as he began to dip forwards. I took a step toward him, pushing his torso gently so he was resting against the back of the toilet.

Now, a new problem.

The second I took my knife out, there would be a fountain of blood. If left unattended, it would likely seep beneath the door in no time, which had the possibility of impeding our escape. Rick, who was standing there, somewhat stunned by the speed of my reaction, caught my eye as I nodded my head toward the towel rack. He reached out and took the dusty once-pink hair towel and handed it to me.

I took it with my spare hand, using it to tourniquet the base of his neck tightly before slowly sliding my blade free. The blood spurted out but was caught mostly in the towel before it quickly slowed to a trickle.

Rick busied himself attempting to slide open the window, cringing as it squeaked slightly whilst lowering. Once I was confident that the cadaver wouldn’t fall or bleed all over the place, I let him go, leaving him leaning back on the toilet like he’d fallen asleep taking a shit.

“Syn,” Rick whispered, nodding toward the partially opened window.

I wanted to argue, to tell him that it would be smarter for him to go first and leave me behind to deal with the men should they find us but doing so would take too much time. Time we didn’t have.

I effortlessly climbed up the countertop, gripped the edge of the half open window, and swung both my legs through the gap, my torso following suit without even brushing the sill. Rick’s slight gasp disappeared beneath the sound of the wind as I fell, landing easily in a crouch, both feet digging into the soil of the garden bed. His head peaked out, looking down at me with a concerned grimace that softened into a momentary look of relief before he vanished back inside. A second later, he leaned back through to toss the rifle left behind by the Toilet Man before lowering himself through the open window and down to the soft soil below.

I could hear the footsteps echoing from inside as the men made their way through the house and knew it would not be long before they stumbled on one of the two dead bodies upstairs. That, or those bodies stumbled on them. Neither had a head wound, which meant, given enough time, they’d Turn.

I’d prefer to be a nice distance away before that happened.

Glancing behind me at Rick, I jerked my head towards the neighbouring house. Carl would have made for the cover of walls, not trees, and I could tell Rick knew that, too, by the tight nod he gave me in return. We began to stalk around the edge of the house towards the front, where we would have to pass in front of the porch in order to get to where we needed to be. As long as we clung to the outer walls and ducked beneath the windows, we should be safe from notice.

Suddenly, I heard the distant sound of gurgling echoing from the open bathroom window above us. A sound that was quickly matched by a scream of surprise that turned into a screech of pain before being cut off rather abruptly.

I shared a look with Rick over my shoulder, pulling a face. “_Well, fuck_.”

They were going to come looking for the culprit. We were too close.

No. No, we weren’t.

My mind raced a million miles a minute before I landed on a plan, reaching behind me to grab Rick’s forearm and dragging him along as I slid around the corner to the front of the house. We moved through the garden bed until we came to rest in the shadowed corner where the porch met the house’s face.

It was a gamble, but these men were the flighty sort, I could tell. They would want to hunt for the one responsible for their comrade’s death and they’d instinctively leave the house, thinking they’d made a run for it because that is what they would have done. Staying close, but hidden, seemed like our best bet.

But fuck me if it wasn’t nerve wracking.

I could hear them running about the house, their footsteps thundering against the floorboards like the sound of a distant storm. One of them came right out onto the porch, leaning over the railing to survey the front yard as if a pair of footprints would materialise in the overgrown lawn for them to follow.

He lingered upon the porch, his controlled breathing echoing alongside my steady heartbeat. I could practically feel his presence above us like a physical weight. If he glanced downwards, even slightly, his gaze would catch our shadowed forms, pushed up against the brickwork of the porch’s raised foundation. Rick was holding his breath. I could feel the tense heat of his body behind me, feel the stillness of it as his muscles tensed. Even his teeth were clenched.

I willed the shadows around us to thicken, to obscure us from view as much as I dared. It was a form of glamour, a type of magic I had barely begun to learn before the world fell apart. I understood it _just_ enough to use it, my knowledge and experience of using the darkness to my advantage gifting me a natural affinity for shadow weaving, if only a slight one.

Whatever minimal assistance it granted us; I was thankful for. The man above us let out a sigh before I heard the tell-tale sound of a heel grinding against concrete as he turned in place. Orders were barked in his rough voice; _check the woods, find the bastards_, all that good stuff.

Rapid footsteps approached the porch before a shadow flew over us, making both Rick and I flinch. It was one of the men, leaping over the railing above us. He landed at the edge of the garden bed we were hidden within, ankles disappearing beneath the overgrown grass of the yard as he took off at a sprint towards the tree line across the road, the M16 strapped over his shoulder bouncing against his back.

I could hear Rick swallowing almost comically loud as we watched the man disappear into the foliage and the sounds of his mate’s footsteps disappearing in different directions all around us.

Slowly, I peeled myself free from the brick foundation and began to slide along the edge of the house towards the opposite fence. Rick followed closely behind me, hand gripping my arm. I don’t know when he’d grabbed me, but his grip had been so tight that I’d practically lost sensation where his fingers had dug in. It didn’t bother me. I was glad to know he was there.

We made it to the fence quickly. Though the men had spread out, I could still hear one of them closer by than I felt comfortable with. He was walking on the opposite side of the back fence of the property and would be the biggest threat of spotting us when we leapt over the fence. We could either risk it; or I could distract him and possibly alert the men to the fact we were still well within their vicinity.

Being spotted by jumping the fence was the least risky. Hiding the man after killing him would take much more effort and time than the situation allowed. I sent Rick first, joining my hands together and indicating he use me as a steppingstone to get over the tall wooden structure with less effort.

He was lighter than I liked. When had he last eaten?

Next, I shimmied back until I was against the weatherboards of the house again. The gap between the wall and the fence was only roughly three metres, but it was enough. Taking off at a sprint, I jumped, reaching up to grab the top of the fence, using my grip to guide me as I pressed the sole of my booted foot against the wooden panel to propel me over. I used the momentum to flip my body over backwards, twisting at the height of it to guide myself to the ground along the other side of the fence. When I landed beside Rick, he flinched slightly, as if expecting it to be one of the men and not me.

I flashed him a grin that I hoped was cockier than I really felt before beginning to stalk my way across the grassy yard, toward the back door of the house. Remaining crouched, Rick followed along behind me, climbing the concrete staircase that lead up to the yellow-painted door.

I could still hear the footsteps along the back of the property as the man stalked around it.

Rick lifted his hand, reaching past my shoulder to try twist the handle of the back door. It clicked, and he spat out a soft curse.

“Fucking _locked_.”

I snorted and smirked, reaching under my shirt to take out the second underwire I kept securely tucked at the base of my bra. “Yes. How dare someone lock their doors in the apocalypse?”

The lock was easy to pick, but the doors hinges almost threatened to undo all our hard sneaking work with how loudly it wanted to goddamn creak. Rick reached out to snatch the handle, his hand overlapping mine as it gripped the cool metal, pulling the door to a stop. We were so close now that his breath was tickling my cheek.

“_Too loud_,” he whispered, brows pulling down in a concerned frown.

I shook my head. “_I’ll open it quick_.”

Rick shook his head.

I pursed my lips. “_Trust me. Better a short sound they only just catch than a long, drawn out one_.”

His teeth clenched, forehead creasing deeper as he took a moment to contemplate before letting go. I gave a thankful nod before shuffling closer to the door, taking a deep breath to steady myself. Without further hesitation, I pushed open the door in one quick swing, catching it just before it struck the wall behind it. The sound wasn’t given enough time to be as loud as before, thankfully, but it was still much more than was comforting.

Rick and I practically crawled inside, electing to leave the door open as we straightened. My ears strain to pick up any semblance of sound inside the house, hearing little more than the settling walls and a faint whisper of wind through an open window somewhere nearby.

We began to tip toe through the house. I held tightly onto my knife, whilst Rick lifted the stolen rifle to his shoulder, keeping his gaze firmly down the sight as we moved. Our feet silently pressed against the tiled floor, toe first, then heel as we passed from the kitchen to the floorboard lined hallway extending down alongside the angled wall of the staircase.

When we reached the edge of the stairs, where the hallway opened into the front foyer, I heard the slightest of scuffles against the floorboards of the room through the left archway. I held out my arm to bring Rick to a stop beside me, jerking my chin toward what I imagined was the living room.

Slowly, I stepped into the foyer, purposefully allowing my feet to fall slightly heavier than usual. If it were a walker, that would have been enough to alert them to my presence. But nothing happened. Simply silence.

It wasn’t a walker.

I stepped closer.

The glint of a blade caught my eye mere moments before the sound of an angered grunt met my ears. A body appeared in the archway, spinning toward me, sword slicing through the air above my head. Instinctively, I brought my weapon up, catching the katana’s blade between my own and its hilt.

Her face came into focus within the framing of our raised arms, and I sputtered out a laugh of pure surprised elation when my brain put together the picture I was seeing.

“_Mish_?”

The woman’s contorted grimace faded instantly, replaced by a slow smile as she pulled her sword away from my knife and let it clatter to the floor before enveloping me in a tight hug.

I could feel my throat closing up as tears stung my eyes, my own arms curling around her waist in both mute surprise and honest relief.

Behind me, Rick let out a breath of choked air as he realised whose arms were currently encircling me.

“Michonne?”

I pulled away far enough to allow Rick a chance to embrace her too, stepping back toward the front door far enough to catch a glimpse of the second figure, floating just behind the edge of the archway. He stepped forwards, blue eyes wide as he looked between his father and I with a pursed frown.

“They gone?” Carl asked.

I let myself exhale the relieved breath that had been caught in the base of my throat, shaking my head in response to his question. “Not yet, kiddo. They’re lurking about.”

“I saw Carl run in here,” Michonne explained as she parted from Rick’s embrace, looking back to me and the young one that had come to stand beside me. “I was following tracks I thought were yours – turns out it was these bozos.”

“Well. At least they’re good for something,” I remarked with a smirk, putting my hand on Carl’s shoulder as he stepped closer. “Even if it’s just for being the reason I just heard the word “bozos” come out of your mouth.”

Michonne snorted.

Rick was still too tense to find the humour in my hilarity, so he remained pinched liped, resting his hands on his hips. “They’re gonna scope these houses eventually. We need to get movin’.”

My earlier grin faded into a scowl. “How do you propose we do that? Jump the back fence, high-tail it into the woods?”

He shrugged one shoulder, glancing to Michonne with a slightly raised brow.

“They came from the west,” she answered his silent question without much prompting. “I’d assume they’ll keep going east, so the woods might be a good bet.”

“There’s too much open air between here and there,” I pointed out. “Best to stay covered, especially when they seem like a rather trigger-happy bunch.”

Rick hummed in reluctant agreement.

“Then we move between houses?” Michonne suggested. “Jump the fences; stay covered, stay quiet.”

I looked down at Carl, pursing my lips momentarily as I silently considered the likelihood he’d struggle with some of the fences. Of course, the three of us would help him, but that was something that needed to be discussed now.

“If one of us needs to lift Carl over, another one of us needs to be on the other side,” I stated simply.

Carl shifted away from me, a slight movement, but enough for my hand to drop from his shoulder.

He didn’t like being infantized, and I understood that, but in terms of survival I’d prefer to infantize him than lose him. I didn’t think of him as a baby – he was perfectly capable in most situations – but he was still smaller than us and I wasn’t going to ignore that just to make him less sullen.

Rick nodded his agreement. “Syn, you go first. I lift Carl, Michonne follows, then me.”

We all agreed.

#

It was going so well, until we got to That House.

And of course, that would have to be when things went wrong, wouldn’t it?

We had made it over three fences so far, all barely without issue – bar the middle one, that had been brick and far too high for Carl, as I had predicted would happen.

But now we were here, at the overgrown lawn of the fifth house on the block. And as we made our way across, through the long grass, the rickety gate set into the back fence of the property began to rattle. Rick and Michonne were still close enough to the perimeter to drop down and disappear into the overgrow garden bed, but Carl and I were both too far along to hide.

I did the only thing I could, as much as my instincts screamed at me not to. My hand snatched Carl’s thin arm and I pulled him backwards, using my free hand to reach behind me, for the cold metal handle of the house’s outer basement door. Luck abound, it was unlocked, and I pulled the kid inside along with me, into the darkness.

Shadows encased us, and I felt the chilled air seep into our skin almost the instant the door silently clicked closed.

Our feet crunched as we stepped, over what seemed to be a sheet of crumpled plastic laid atop the concrete floor.

My brows furrowed as I realised that I had instinctively placed Carl in what I would have thought would be the more dangerous position. He was between me and the door, where – any minute now – a man with a gun could come charging through. I knew this; my body knew this, yet…

A sound.

Faint. Too faint for Carl to hear. Barely enough for my sensitive ears.

It was a step. On the basement staircase behind us. And a harsh breath that echoed far more than it should have.

My grip on Carl’s shoulders tightened.

I considered leaving, just opening the door and taking my chances with the man outside, but I knew it would be putting Carl at risk.

Another footstep on the staircase, this one enough to creak. The air in the room grew colder, heavier; as if the walls had turned to ice and were closing in around us.

Carl remained tense, his small hands reaching back and gripping the fabric of my jeans on the outside of my legs. He was focused on the door, beyond which even he would be able to hear the footsteps crunching against the dried foliage of the overgrown yard beyond.

I wondered if the man outside could see our tracks through the grass; if we had carved a pathway to the door without realising. It sounded as if he was heading our way.

Behind me, another footstep. The stairs creaked and the shaky breath I allowed slip free through my nose appeared as a faint mist. I could feel eyes piecing through me with such a pressure, the hair on the back of my neck and arms began to rise. My feet shifted ever so slightly in discomfort, but even that small movement rumpled the plastic beneath my feet. The sound made both Carl and I tense even more, knowing that it was very within the realm of possibility that the man outside the door could hear it.

We had to remain still.

Which meant, I had to ignore whatever _the fuck_ was slowly creeping down those basement stairs behind us.

Easier said than done, of course. I remembered the face I had seen in the window when Carl and I had been walking past earlier that day. The twisted features of a torn smile on a rotting face with eyes far too wide and aware to belong to that of a walker.

I tried to keep my breathing calm, steady and quiet. Carl was doing relatively well, given the situation, too. I could feel his shoulders rising and falling, as if he were trying very hard to keep himself grounded, even though he could hear the crunching sound of dry grass beneath the man’s booted feet outside the door. He was approaching it steadily, as if he were nervous. Perhaps he could feel the unwelcoming air within, seeping through the gap beneath the wooden door?

I remained fixated on it, listening intently to the steady breaths of the man outside as he hunted us. So intent was I, that the sudden burst of sound from behind me almost made me turn around.

Heavy footsteps thundered down the rest of the stairs, as if taken at a run, crossing the plastic sheet atop the concrete floor so fast I was sure whatever it was would be unable to stop itself before colliding with me.

Carl jumped, and I lifted my hand just in time to muffle his shocked gasp as the footfalls charged towards us, disappearing almost as suddenly as they had appeared.

Right by my back.

Whatever had been on those stairs was now looming _right behind me_.

I could feel its frozen presence like a weight upon the air against my back; could feel its eyes staring at the nape of my neck.

Carl was hyperventilating now, the misting breaths seeping through the gaps in my fingers as I tried to muffle the sound. I kept one hand on his shoulder, gripping so tightly it was likely hurting, but he didn’t seem to care. He was too focused on remaining still and trying to calm his breathing.

It had been like standing on the tracks, staring down a goddamn freight train, keeping my feet planted as those charging footsteps rushed toward me. Right now, it was taking more will power than I would like to admit to remain there, still and silent as that thing hovered behind me, and the footsteps beyond the door grew louder.

The sensation of something moving close behind me made me exhale a shaky, misted breath that was matched a moment later by a harsh, long growling breath from by my right ear. My entire body tensed as a shiver ran down my spine and I clenched my teeth so tightly they ached in an effort to remain still. The slightest of movements would disrupt the plastic beneath my feet, which would alert the man outside to our presence in here. At this point, I wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t just straight open fire into the door if he heard us behind it.

These guys seemed just about unstable enough for that to be a reasonable possibility.

Another breath, this one close enough to creep across the top of my ear and edge of my cheek. It was cold, enough that I imagined a thin layer of frost forming upon the skin it breezed across.

My own breathing was beginning to grow shaken. I couldn’t help it. My heartbeat was thundering so violently that it was making my entire body vibrate. I was using equal amount of focus ensuring I wasn’t gripping Carl to hard – with either the hand covering his mouth, or the one holding his shoulder – and remaining as still and quiet as possible.

I almost lost it completely when I heard the sound of creaking bones by my right ear. My heart fell sharply into the pit of my stomach as I felt something _touch _my shoulder. I turned my head ever so slightly, catching what appeared to be rotten, bony fingers closing down one by one upon my shoulder. Each movement was accompanied by a series of creaking cracks, and I felt the cold pressure of the hand as if it were physically corporeal.

My entire body tensed as I fought against the urge to run.

Carl was shaking violently, as if he could sense my fear like it was his own.

A breath blew past my ear, loud and harsh; more a growl than anything.

The footsteps beyond the door transformed from the crunch of dried grass to the scuff of boots upon concrete. He was at the basement door.

I fought so hard against the urge to make a sound; even just the slightest of whimpers as that ghoulish hand began to curl in against the flesh of my shoulder, gripping me tighter and tighter. My body wanted to flee, to run from that gurgled breath that brushed against my right ear. But I knew the second I did either, I’d be putting Carl at risk.

He stood pressed back into me, ramrod straight and shaking so violently, I was afraid the movement would disturb the plastic beneath his feet. My hand still covered his mouth, but I could hear his rapid breathing through his nose, feel the dampness of it on my forefinger, where it rested below his nostrils. The fingers of my other hand had slipped down from his shoulder, now pressed firmly against the centre of his chest, pulling him tight against me. I knew he could feel my own body shaking, which likely didn’t ease his fear any.

He’d made a joke, no less than a week ago now, about me being fearless. When I’d told him it wasn’t true, he had said to me that anything feared by the “brave Synnove le Jacques” would be something worthy of terror.

I kinda really wished he hadn’t been right about that.

From the other side of the door, I could hear the man breathing. It was slow, controlled, though it held a slightly shaken edge to it, as if he subconsciously knew there was something beyond that door he didn’t want to see.

My eyes remained fixed on that door handle, beginning to burn they were opened so wide.

From behind me, a breath. No, not a breath. This sound held a word. A word that almost broke me, that made the slightest of sounds rise in my throat, only to be chocked off by will alone.

“_Miiinnnneeee_.”

Jesus _fucking _Christ. My heart about stopped in my chest.

The door handle jiggled. My fingers curled in Carl’s shirt, ready to fling him across the room and out of sight of the man with the gun.

I could see something moving out of the corner of my eye, above where the hand gripped my shoulder.

Oh God.

It was a face.

_Its_ face.

The thing was slowly leaning forward. I _refused_ to look, _refused_ to turn my head. My gaze remained firmly on that door, even as the pale shape grew in the corner of my vision. _Don’t fucking look. Don’t look. Don’t look._

A loud sound from outside. Was it a yell? A voice, calling out a name.

“_Len_! _Len, ya bastard! We got tracks_!”

The door handle fell silent. Footsteps began to sound against the dry grass once again.

I clenched my teeth so hard I was afraid they’d shatter as I waited to hear that fucking gate close, the muscles of my neck straining against the unconscious urge to turn my head and look at the shape looming at the edge of my vision.

_Don’t look. Don’t look._

The _instant_ I heard that gate latch, I pushed Carl forwards and began to run toward the door. I don’t think I even touched the handle, some unconscious, adrenaline fuelled part of me must have reached out with my magic to pull it open because it swung inward of its own accord.

My body should have known better, but I was secretly thankful I was just as much of a panicking idiot subconsciously as I was… well, consciously.

Carl and I burst free of that basement like two terrified bats out of the cavernous mouth of hell.

I don’t know how much that kid saw, heard, or felt, but it was enough to make him whiter than a sheet of pre-apocalypse paper. His breath was still uneven, body shaking, even as Rick reappeared from the garden bed by the fence and rushed over to us as quietly as he could.

Michonne wasn’t far behind, her eyes wide as she took in the state of both of us.

“_What_ –“

“_Don’t, Rick_,” I whispered quickly. “_Don’t ask. Not here_.”

He gave me a confused and slightly uneasy look, but thankfully took me at my word and shut up about it.

“_They went back towards the woods that way_,” he stated, jerking his head toward the front of the house. “_Don’t know what tracks they found, but sticking around to find out ain’t a good idea_.”

I nodded, taking in a long, shaky breath of fresh air before beginning to march towards the gate at the end of the yard. The others followed behind me without complaint. It was the best option we had – to get to the woods on the opposite side of where the men had gone. And also, get the _fuck _away from this house.

I pulled open the gate easily, standing aside and ushering the others through it with a quick motion of my free hand.

And then, like the _idiot _I am, as I made to follow behind them, I glanced over my shoulder towards the basement door.

It was almost instinctive, as if my body acted without conscious thought, wanting to spot the predator it felt eyeing it from across the yard. And spot it I did.

The thing stood in the open doorway, a silhouette that had once been in the shape of a human. I didn’t allow myself enough time to fully contemplate the sight, simply looked away and hoped it wouldn’t haunt my damn nightmares for years to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G-diddily-day, guys!   
I want to apologise for this taking so long, but I changed around a little of the story to fit in a super spooky Halloween-style section to celebrate the ~spooky season~. As per usual, I really hope you all enjoy it! Thank you for sticking with me and I hope you're all well!
> 
> If you're feeling generous, don't forget to comment! I thrive off comments. <3 
> 
> Thank you for not shooting me on sight,  
Love, always,   
FaerieHuntress xx

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again for reading! Feedback is not only accepted, it is encouraged!  
I'm hoping to post chapters weekly, though knowing my inpatient self, I may post them at faster intervals. It will all be played by pointed ear.
> 
> HOPE YOU ENJOYED.


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